Crunk
by Lobotomised
Summary: He asked her to Hogsmeade one hundred and thirty seven times. Then he stopped. And now Lily Evans has to battle her own fat mouth and mad head and the probability that number one hundred and thirty eight's going to have to be on her if she wants James Potter to ever smile her way again. Oh dear.
1. Arithmancy and Gas

Hiya guys! 'Crunk' is going to be a short story - maybe five chapters, tops. It will be fluffy, light-hearted and a wee bit angsty. This chapter takes place towards the end of the piece and chapter two - which loops back to 'the beginning of it all' - is ready to go. If there's any enthusiasm for this one, I'll put it up in a few days!

Note: the title does not refer to the obscene musical genre which was birthed in Memphis. A 'crunk' is a state of being. More will be explained later.

The Day of Reckoning

Lily Evans staggered into the girls' dormitory at some point after five o'clock on an unusually bright evening in October.

Despite the fact that it was no longer hers, having recently claimed a particularly nice room in the Heads' dormitories (with no small measure of glee) she threw herself onto the closest four poster and ripped the pinching boots off her feet. After the bloody things had been banished to the other side of the room, she fell back onto the bed and groaned aloud; one long, tortured sound.

Five minutes passed, during which she tried to empty her mind. But snippets of the day – the memories she had been trying to repress – ploughed determinedly through her shoddy meditation and eventually, scrunching her eyes against the barrage of intensely mortifying remembrances, she gave herself up to regret.

'Shouldn't have done it,' she wailed. 'Stupid, stupid idea. Weak, Lily. Weak!' She thumped the bed with both fists and started to wrestle off her coat. 'So his jaw is _chiselled_,' she snarked, battling with a pesky sleeve, 'and his shoulders are all_ biiig_ and his eyes are- are_ brown_ and _stupid_ and he– he doesn't hex every bloody thing in a fit of misguided testosterone!' She gave another strangled moan and covered her face with her hands. 'So _what_?'

Another recollection hit her: just a facial expression, but it was enough for her internal organs to begin to petrify with embarrassment. Then, for a good thirty seconds, she kicked her heels as hard as she could against the foot of the bed and roared her frustration at the ceiling as loudly as possible. When she had exhausted herself she collapsed back onto the covers.

'What in Merlin's name are you doing?'

She shot up. Dorcas was standing in the doorway, watching in amazement. A gaping Marlene followed her through and Mary poked her head curiously around the doorframe seconds later. 'Was that you, Lil?' she asked, frowning. 'What've you done to Dorky's bed?'

Next door someone muttered, 'Cripes, that didn't sound good.' Doors all along the corridor were clicking open and worried questions began to be thrown all over the tower.

'Someone's killing a hippogriff,' chortled a sixth year down the hall.

'Simone's killing a hippogriff!' yelped another student a little further down.

'Simone's being killed by a hippogriff!' shouted a hysterical first year, somewhere else in the tower.

'Arithmancy,' said a world-weary fourth year sagely, passing by the seventh year dormitory.

'Nah – Hogsmeade today. Bad date, I'd wager,' her friend said, laughing.

At this last one, Lily groaned as if mortally injured and pulled Dorcas's pillow over her face, securing it with both her arms. Mary stuck her head out of the door to calm the masses, yelling, 'Simone's alive! No hippogriffs have been killed. Head Girl's had a shit day, so pipe down, the lot of you.' Swatting Mary on the arm, Marlene quickly followed with, 'Arithmancy! It's just Arithmancy. And – and gas. Yes. Killer combination.'

The door was swung shut and soon afterward Lily felt the bed sink in a few places and a hand on her ankle.

'That bad, huh?' came Dorcas's voice from her left.

'So bad I feel physically ill,' Lily said, without exaggeration. Her stomach would lurch with nausea each time she thought about events prior to arriving in this dormitory five minutes ago.

'Gas?' Marlene asked awkwardly. The door opened again before Lily could thrash her. In came a blissful Alice with a loud exclamation of, 'Lord almighty can Frank snog. Mars, I tell you-'

She cut off short, noticing the little huddle her roommates made around the pathetic figure on the bed. Lily could feel her trepidation from across the room. 'What's happened?' came Alice's tentative whisper. She tiptoed closer. 'Lil?'

'We're just about to find out,' Mary said as the bed sank in a fourth place around Lily's prone form. 'Care to share, Lilykins?' Someone prodded Lily in the side and she swatted feebly at the rogue hand.

'Quite honestly, no,' she muttered through the pillow. 'But you're bound to find out about the shambles at one point, so I might as well be the bringer of rubbish news.'

There was silence in the dormitory. Someone was patting her ankle sympathetically, Dorcas was making soothing little 'mmm' noises in her throat – 'I'd stop groaning, Dorky, or you'll put her off her story,' Mary muttered – and the other two were uncommonly quiet.

Someone tugged at the pillow over Lily's face and she relinquished it grudgingly. Marlene and Alice were to her right, Mary and Dorcas to her left, and all four were staring at her with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.

'Well,' Lily started, breathing out in a long exhale. She stared up at the canopy ceiling for a moment and then closed her eyes again. Now that the mortification had passed she just felt like crying. 'Well, it all started fine. It should've been fine –'

'Wait, sorry,' Alice butted in, sounding apologetic. 'What should have been fine? I went out early with Frank this morning.'

The bed rang with the collective protests of disbelief from the other girls. Mary heaved a great sigh. 'Catch on, Longbotty-to-be! Hurry up and tell her, Lil – I want to hear the good stuff.'

'The good stuff?' Lily asked incredulously, the debilitating weakness dropping away for a moment as wrath flashed in her eyes. 'Is this your dearest friend's life here, Mary MacDonald, or the latest goss?' Mary looked properly abashed. Then to Alice, Lily said, frowning, 'Where've you been the last few months, Al? You should be ever aware of my ordeals.'

'I'm sorry,' Alice said, guilt clear on her face. 'I've been… preoccupied.'

The other three – those who were fit vessels for such positive emotions – laughed uproariously. 'We all know what that means,' Marlene said slyly.

'Hey!' Lily griped, propping herself up on her elbows so she could quell her audience with a stare that forebode certain death. 'Do you want to hear the story or what? I am quickly losing the will to live and I will either die or start crying in the next five minutes if I can't sort my head out. That means you have to shut up and listen.'

'Proceed, by all means,' Marlene said quickly, looking properly apologetic and hushing the others. Mary wiped a tear from her eye and Alice, glowing a pleasant pink, settled down more comfortably upon the bed.

'Should we wait for Emmeline?' Dorcas asked, looking toward the door.

'No,' Mary said mercilessly, slapping Dorcas's knee with a sharp thwack at further delaying the story. 'Bad witch. It's Em's fault that she's not here. Now all of you stop interrupting poor Lily.'

'From the very start,' Alice put in quickly, her blush still in full force.

'Right.' Lily heaved a great sigh. 'From the start, then.'


	2. Lily Evans is an Alien

Aaaand chapter two! I remember saying something about posting this if there's enthusiasm for it, but i appear to have enough enthusiasm for us all.. Come on guys, i've had over 600 hits and five reviews - that's tres sad! Oh well. Here we go, back to the beginning of it all... :)

The Beginning.

If the truth was to be told – which it was, because Lily really hated beating around the proverbial shrubbery – it had started months and months ago. Maybe as much as year had passed since she had first noticed the Change.

For five years she had detested one James Potter. He was everything she hated: arrogant; careless; selfish; rude; a bully. And, to further exacerbate her violent dislike of him, he had decided at some point during third year that he loved Lily and that the whole school should be made aware of it at least once a week.

He went out of his way to impress her: intricate spells that caused flowers to grow wherever she trod; fireworks spelling out their joined names in the Great Hall; long and futile attempts to teach the Giant Squid to sing 'a bicycle built for two' – nothing was above or below James Potter in his wooing of Lily Evans. But, as often happens with the more contrary type of teenager – and if Lily had a fault it was her pig-headed tenacity – the more James pushed, the more determined she was to completely loathe him.

Towards the end of third year, Marlene began a tally of the times Potter asked Lily out. They had reached a whopping one hundred and thirty seven before, quite suddenly, he stopped.

Lily had no idea why: number one hundred and thirty seven took place quite unremarkably on the Hogwarts Express at the end of fifth year.

'Oi, Evans,' Potter had called across the corridor. If Lily had looked more closely, she might have seen the look of resignation on his face. She would have noticed Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew watching grimly from inside their compartment. She might have heard the mutters from inside that compartment after she had blown him off for the one hundred and thirty seventh time.

'Bad luck, Prongs,' she might have heard. 'So ends the great saga.' And the final, fatalistic ''S alright, lads. It's over.'

But she didn't, and so it came as a surprise to her when, in the third week of holidays, she still hadn't received a single proposal of marriage from Fergelina, Potter's tawny.

Another two weeks passed with nothing. The next time Lily saw him was at Marlene's birthday. It was close to midnight and she was sitting with Benjy Fenwick, Mary, Dorcas and Fabian Prewett on the grass outside Marlene's house. Mary was yawning and Benjy was asleep and, off to the side, Fabian and Dorcas were talking quietly in grave tones. Out the back of the house, Marlene's older brother and his friends were setting off fireworks as entertainment for the drunker guests and Lily was lying on her back, watching the colours make bright patterns against the dark sky.

Soon two figures stumbled out of the front door. The second figure stopped short at the sight of the little party. Sitting up slowly, Lily squinted and recognized Potter. The first figure was Sirius Black, who moaned, 'Not here, Prongs. This is _clearly_ where the party came to die.'

Lily had long ago accepted that Black disliked her almost as intensely as she disliked his best mate, but that had never stopped her from giving him as good as she got back. 'No, really,' she insisted, staring up at him earnestly. 'It's been dead since you arrived, Black.'

'You lie, Evans,' Black said, waving a dismissive hand. 'I bring only life.'

Next to him, Potter chuckled gently. Lily narrowed her eyes, but made no further comment. Mary, however, squawked indignantly, 'Take it back, Black, or I'll tell Mar's mum that you spiked the butterbeer.' He laughed, said, 'Only for you, Mary MacDonald, only for you,' and ignoring Lily completely, sat himself on the grass between Benjy, now snoring loudly, and Mary.

Potter hovered for a few moments, uncommonly unsure, before he lowered himself next to Lily. Determined not to ruin the lovely night for herself, she said nothing, and when Potter then said, his voice low and quiet, 'Alright, Evans?' she grunted and continued as she had been, lying still and peaceful on the cool, sweet-smelling grass.

And that was all he said to her the whole night. Countless times she thought he'd ask – go for number one hundred and thirty eight – but when he spoke, it was only to add to Black and Mary's debate about alien life-forms.

'I reckon Evans might be an alien,' Black said casually at one point. 'What do you think, James?'

Acting out of character for the second time that night, Potter did not reply with a dramatically incensed, 'how dare you suggest such a thing about mine lady-love!' as all expected. Instead, he said gently, 'nah. Probably not.'

Lily felt like she had pins and needles in her brain, such was her surprise, and Mary fidgeted uncomfortably. Black looked faintly proud.

* * *

It was only on the Platform at the start of her sixth year that Lily realized that Potter's infatuation with her had ended. She hadn't received one note from him over the summer and though surprised, she was honestly glad about it. So much of her energy – better spent upon learning and other such frivolous pursuits what with O. coming up – had been expended on being mad at James Potter. Now, with N.E. on the horizon, she _was_ glad.

She knew with startling finality when he passed her on his way to the front of the train, gave a small, impersonal smile and said, 'Alright, Evans?' But he was moving quickly down the corridor and before she could muster up the words to reply, he was gone.

It was the same line as ever, but it was the smile that told her that she was looking at the end of an era.

Although she was to be preoccupied all that year – a big one, academically, and thus a quiet one for her love life – she couldn't help but notice the increasingly surprising changes in James Potter. Or the fact that his love life was anything but stagnant. She didn't set out to notice, but how could she not when he and Daisy Abbott went around joined at the hip and, more frequently, the mouth?

Nor could she avoid seeing the changes. He had filled out his lankiness: now his shoulders were broader and his arms… weren't thin. He also grew into his looks, his formerly too-long nose now in proportion with the rest of his long, angled face. His hair was ever-messy, but now the girls called it 'tousled'.

Stranger still were the changes in his behaviour. He wasn't quieter: no, James Potter would never be quiet. He still pranked and laughed and caused havoc; he still teased his teachers and goaded the girls. But he lost the strut in his step and not once did Lily see him or even hear of him hexing someone for the sake of it. And, even when he was up in the air, giving instructions in his Captain's gear, he was remarkably down to earth.

It took three words from Mary MacDonald for Lily to truly process what had happened.

'He's grown up,' the witch said, wonder in her voice. They were at lunch, watching James talking quietly and gently to his third year beater a few seats up.

_Why couldn't you have been like this last year_, Lily caught herself thinking bitterly. But that was an unhealthy thought. _Does it do to dwell on the past, Lily? No. It bloody well does not_, she told herself firmly.

It was just so strange. She had spent four years fighting off his advances, thinking him a prize arsehole, and now he ignored her and was the epitome of the top bloke.

Because despite these changes, he still treated Lily differently from everyone else. Now, when he saw her in the corridor, his face would fall infinitesimally and he would adopt that same impersonal smile and nod his head in greeting. When he had to talk to her, it was as if to a casual acquaintance.

_I was just the – the infatuation of his youth_, Lily realized, thinking absently how trite and poetic that sounded.

He had grown up. And he had left her behind.

* * *

She watched him closely that year. She had to be sure it wasn't just a phase.

Quickly, however, and with growing alarm, she began to see that James Potter was funny, intelligent, confident, gentle and a fantastic leader. The fact that he still served at least two detentions a month wasn't even a deterrent. His eyes were bright behind his glasses. He kept his hands out of hair, for the most part. His smile lit up his face like a bloody _lumos_ charm.

But after a few weeks she began to see a pattern. And then she realised _why_. His eyes were bright for Daisy Abbott, and his hands weren't in his hair, because they were in her hands.

'Why did I get him when he was an absolute prick and she gets him now he's got the sun up his arse?' Lily asked Emmeline Vance and Dorcas one day on the way to Ancient Runes, watching the couple walk arm in arm in front of them. Neither friend said anything, but when Lily looked back at them, Dorcas was smiling smugly and Emmeline was staring at Lily with curiosity.

_They think I'm jealous_, she realised with some alarm. The thought was so surprising that she stopped in her tracks and had to enter the Runes classroom by herself a few moments later. Moving to her seat next to Emmeline, she watched as two rows in front of her, Daisy slid, laughing, into the seat next to James.

_When did I start calling him James?_ she wondered. His shoulders contracted with laughter and she frowned when Daisy's hands came up to rest lightly on his shoulder-blades. _Am I jealous?_ The idea was so frightening it took the starch out Lily's knees and she physically dropped into her chair.

Thought she tried to distract herself many times, all through the lesson she watched them. Or,m really, _him_. James had rolled his shirt up and his tie was hanging down his back. His hair was so dark it was like a black hole, she mused, sucking the brightness around it; making the myriad of other hair colours – Daisy's blonde, Remus's pale brown and even Sirius's obnoxiously glossy black – look dull in comparison. _Merlin, I'm turning into a _sap, she thought with some alarm.

But she couldn't help it: she watched, entranced, as James leant over and whispered something into Daisy's ear. A loud peal of laughter left the blonde's mouth and he hastily covered it with a large hand, a wide grin lifting his mouth as partially-deaf Professor Vector looked up in confusion.

Two rows behind the couple, the room seemed suddenly too hot. Lily lifted the hair off her neck and shrugged her outer robes off. A strange, dark feeling had begun roiling in her stomach when Vector turned back to the board and the dark-haired boy stole a kiss from Daisy to the laughter of those around him.

'Are you okay?'

Emmeline was watching her with concern. The redhead scrunched her eyes shut and nodded. 'Yeah, thanks, Em.' She tried to laugh casually, saying, 'It's a bit hot in here, isn't it?'

The other witch frowned. 'You're pretty red, Lil. Maybe you should step outside for a little bit.'

Lily nodded, holding in her breath. She let it out in a whoosh, tearing her eyes away from the nauseating couple in front. 'Good idea.' Come to think of it, she felt a bit sick.

Emmeline excused her and Lily made her getaway. As she walked to the front of the classroom she could have sworn James's eyes followed her, but when she sneaked a peak back at him at the door, he was poking Daisy in the ribs, laughing. Remus, however, was watching her curiously. Embarrassed to be caught watching, Lily flashed him a sheepish smile and lifted her hand in acknowledgement.

Once outside in the blessed cool, she leant against the door, letting out another deep breath in the fresher air. The Ancient Runes classroom abutted a corridor that was open to the courtyard through huge stone arches and she sank onto one of the low walls beneath a swooping arch. She felt better out of the stuffy classroom… with nowhere to look but forward at James and Daisy. But her stomach was still clenching and unclenching strangely. She leant her back against the cool stone and closed her eyes, basking in the thawing March sun.

_March_. He had been going out with Daisy for three months. For a sixteen year old as flighty as James, that was closing in on serious, Lily realized with a sinking feeling.

_Why Daisy?_ she wondered, tamping down an irrational surge of nastiness. Breathing in deeply, she started again. _She's pretty_, she thought calmly, trying to stay objective. _And she's smart and nice and loyal… and she's always lovely to everyone. And,_ here came the ballbreaker, _she understands Quidditch. A bloody good catch,_ she concluded, swinging her heels against the low wall, staring absently ahead.

Thoroughly miserable, and now thoroughly aware that she _was_ ruddy jealous, Lily returned slowly to the classroom. When the door opened again James's head stayed fixedly pointed at his parchment, though many others swivelled around. The rest of the lesson absolutely dragged by and the whole time fear was compounding within the small redhead in the fourth row. She was jealous of Daisy, but what did that mean about her feelings for James Potter?

If Lily Evans had a good quality it was her straight-forwardness and no-nonsense attitude. And if there was any indulgence she hated it was denial: a useless state of being which usually dragged painful things on much longer than necessary.

So, sitting in the fourth row of the Ancient Runes classroom on a morning in March, Lily Evans found herself pondering the imponderable: _do I fancy James Potter_?

_No_, she decided after a time of careful reflection and analysis (during which Vector explained a few crucial points that she would later kick herself for missing). _No, I don't – I can't! – so that means_– and this was embarrassingly petty to admit, even to herself – _I must_ _miss the attention. Even if I hated it back then, it _was_ flattering,_ she conceded, feeling herself blush at the very thought.

Yet, when the bell signaled the end of the period and Daisy Abbott really should have had two holes burned into the back of her robes, Lily was still experiencing the agonies of confusion. And when James stood, stretching his shoulders and his long neck up in a yawn, she found her poor mind even more befuddled.

He reached his arms up high and made a satisfied sound when the joints popped softly, but stopped, motionless, halfway through the stretch. He didn't look at her – kept his head pointed in the direction of the wall – but Lily knew that he could feel her watching him. The thought caused a little tingle to brew in her stomach and though she knew she should look away, she watched intently as James shook his head as though to clear his ears from water, and, still determinedly not look at her, began to pack his things away with a haste that was surely not natural of the easy-going James Potter.

And Lily Evans, shunner of denial and fierce advocate for knowing one's own mind, shelved the feeling because, really, the thought that she _might_ just fancy James Potter was extremely distressing.


	3. The Appreciation of Pureed Plants

Chapter trois! Oh, happy day!

* * *

Miss B. Fuddled

It couldn't be said that, having accepted that she was jealous of Daisy, Lily _embraced_ it, but she was inarguably more liberal with the path she allowed her thoughts on the witch's relationship with the Quidditch Captain to take.

During the classes she shared with the couple she amused herself with daydreams in which Daisy fell flat on her face and knocked all her teeth out or grew a hairy wart on her forehead. After she had exhausted the more inane scenarios, she graduated to fantasies in which James found out that Daisy was pregnant with Severus Snape's child and the like. Soon she had also contracted spattergroit from a hobo and had started to pay for her pixie dust addiction by role-playing with Vector and Filch.

For most of her life, Lily had been a peaceable and non-violent witch, and so she was quite disturbed by the violent dislike she quickly developed for poor Daisy Abbott. The irony was crippling. The one thing that had always turned her from peaceable and non-violent into a harpy was James Potter and now, even if indirectly, it was James Potter who was causing these awful feelings in her again.

Emmeline and Dorcas knew of her quandary: Emmeline, having been witness to Lily glaring at Daisy's back in Runes every single class couldn't possibly _not_ know and Dorcas, just being Dorcas, picked up on it pretty quickly. Thankfully they didn't laugh or poke fun at her as Marlene would have, or project the news out to James and the rest of the school as Alice and Mary would, but assured her that the feeling was probably natural and that Daisy wouldn't wake up with both her legs broken if Lily so happened to have a dream that the blonde took a long walk off the Astronomy tower.

But it was quite discomfiting after one Ancient Runes lesson in April to find that her feelings were visible to people outside her dormitory. During this particular lesson, Lily had viciously stabbed 'Daisy' (an ink blot charmed a blonde-ish colour) to death several times and it was quite possible that her enthusiasm had been a little too animated.

The distraction she found in this lesson meant that she spent very little time actually listening to Vector and, as a result, now had very little understanding of the topic. She told Emmeline to go ahead, meaning to stay behind and ask Vector a question, but a quiet 'Lily?' from her right side halted her.

'Remus!' she greeted, surprised. The boy was, as ever, looking tired, his pale blue eyes underlined by strokes of grey and his hair dishevelled. His face was open and friendly, though, and his infinite patience with people had always impressed Lily. She smiled and began to pack away her charts. 'Deathly dull class, hey?'

He smiled back. 'I noticed that you didn't listen to much of it.' When she didn't reply for a moment, trying to process what that meant, he began to weave his way to the front of the classroom. Feeling her heart rate quicken and her face start to redden, Lily darted after him and asked, her voice suspiciously shrill, 'Wha– what do you mean?'

Without answering, he opened the door for her and followed her out. 'Let's take a walk, Evans,' he said, faking a deep American accent. He was trying to put her at ease, but Lily wouldn't have any of it.

'What do you mean? How did you… you… what do you mean?' she asked nervously, clutching her things to her chest. He shut the door and gestured that they walk together. Looking around her to ensure that corridor was empty, she followed him.

'Remus!' she said in frustration. 'Come on! What is it?'

'You're making it very obvious that there is something to know, Lily Evans,' he said, laughing.

'You're making me uncomfortable,' she said, a touch indignant now. 'I don't– I don't know how much you know,' she said, quiet and firm, despite her nervousness, 'but I'm not really in a place to be– to be pushing this around lightly, Remus.'

They had stopped in the middle of the corridor. It was around one o'clock and most of Hogwarts was in the Great Hall for lunch so it was very quiet at this end of the school. She fidgeted under his assessing gaze. After a moment he smiled. 'I've always like that about you, Lily Evans. You're dramatic, but there's no beating around the bush, you know?'

She didn't know how to respond to that, and so after a few minutes of silence she asked, 'Why are you calling me by my full name?'

Remus frowned. 'I dunno. I honestly don't know whether to call you Lily or Evans. Your full name is as good a title as any.'

After another pause, she said, 'You should call me Lily.' Feeling all of a sudden as if she had to let it out and that Remus would be a better confidante than most, she blurted, 'I'm really torn up at the moment.'

To Lily's great embarrassment he laughed at that. She shot him a sharp look and he seemed to realize his mistake: he took a step back, arms raised above his head. 'I'm sorry! That was completely insensitive.'

'You'd better believe that was insensitive. What was so amusing?' They were still standing in the middle of the corridor. Tilting her head in the direction of the Great Hall in a sharp gesture that he follow (her stomach knew it was one o'clock with more conviction than her mind did) and she started walking again. Sheepishly, he complied, hesitantly explaining as he took a few running strides to catch up, 'I just can't believe how far this has come – how much it's changed, you know?'

His disbelief mirrored hers, then. 'Oh, I know, my friend. I know very well.'

Another small smile tugged at Remus's mouth. Shooting a few hesitantly amused looks at her, he said, 'don't tell me you don't see how it's funny. Just a little bit?'

'I assure you, Remus,' she said stiffly, 'It's quite different on this side of the situation, actually being me, you know. It's more of a suffering than an amusement.'

He nodded apologetically and they walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Lily shot him an impatient look. 'What's funny then?'

Unable to contain his mirth now, he laughed. 'You've spent nearly your entire time at Hogwarts fighting James off and now whenever I look at you in class you're staring at him like he's –'

'Right, thanks,' she interjected quickly, feeling her face explode in heat._ Merlin. Had no idea it was that obvious._

'So, what are you going to do about it?' Remus asked curiously shortly after.

'Do about it?' she repeated, looking at him with genuine surprise, expecting to see a grin or some other telling form of amusement. But his face was honest and open. 'What? Seriously?' He nodded, eyebrows raised at her disbelief. 'Nothing!' she exclaimed, laughing at the idea. 'Wait for it to die down, I suppose.'

After a pause in which she could have sworn he was going to say something else, he said, 'Well, I wish you the best of luck with that,' eyebrows still raised. He stopped walking and Lily became conscious suddenly that they had arrived at the doors to the Entrance Hall. 'When's the last time you spoke to James?' he asked curiously while she tried to think how they could have gotten to the ground floor so quickly. When she had processed the question she felt her cheeks flame again. 'Properly? Not for a long time.'

Remus nodded in a way that closed the conversation. 'To lunch, then?' He waved her into the Great Hall, but she paused under the doorway, frowning. 'How in the name of Merlin did we get here so quickly?' she asked incredulously.

Fingers wiggling, he grinned. 'Must have been magic.'

* * *

Later that evening Lily sat with her back to Dorcas's armchair in front of the common room fire. She had stretched her legs out and had a piece of Honeyduke's Finest carefully levitating at the perfect slow-melting distance from the flames and a hunk of bread and cheese awaiting it in her lap.

'That really freaks me out,' Dorcas said lazily, watching Lily drum her feet in excitement upon the hearth. 'Cheese and chocolate on bread? You are a sick witch.'

'That _is_ foul, Lil,' Marlene agreed, gently turning a first year out of an armchair close by and dragging it over to the fire. 'Hey!' Lily said, watching the eleven year-old scamper off. 'That's an abuse of power! Poor thing.' It sounded more like 'porfink' through the cheese and chocolate. Marlene scrunched up her face in disgust and Dorcas moaned, pushing Lily's head down.

Taking a huge bite of the concoction, Lily widened her eyes unnaturally and bared her chocolate-covered teeth at her friends in a manic smile. 'Yum yum.' Dorcas pretended to gag. 'It's like dessert on toast. Chocolate cheesecake toast.' She hummed happily and took another large bite. After swallowing the mouthful, she admitted, 'It would taste better with peanut butter.' She stared mournfully at the remains of the bread.

The other two sixth year girls groaned aloud. 'Not again, Lily,' Dorcas moaned.

One of the only things Lily found lacking in the wizarding world was its condiments – or lack thereof. Those of her friends from a generally pureblood line had never eaten peanut butter, let alone the more exotic and adventurous chocolate or yeast-based spreads.

'We've been over this a million times, Lil,' Marlene said, covering her eyes with her hands. 'What could possess a muggle to grind up peanuts and put it on bread?'

Lily swung around, firing up. 'What possesses anyone to squash strawberries into goo, Ms. Jam-marmalade-or-nothing?'

'Because jam is a food unto itself!' her opposition cried.

'Hear, hear!' Dorcas said, punching the air with a fist. 'We should start a religion,' she said, looking seriously at Marlene, whose eyes widened. 'No, a cult!' Marlene squeaked in excitement. 'The Cult for the Appreciation of Pureed Plants!' The Anti-Peanut Butter Association crowed with enthusiasm at the scheme.

Determined to burst their bubble, Lily interjected, 'if you're celebrating the appreciation of pureed plants then you'll have to appreciate pickles and chutney and soup as well, not just jam.'

Some of the joy slid off Marlene's face. 'I suppose you're right. But I really like the alliteration. A-PPuh-reciation of Puh-ureed Puh-lants.'

Dorcas shrugged. 'I quite like pickles.'

A voice from behind the three witches piped up enthusiastically, with, 'So do I, Dorcas! We should be really good friends.' Sirius Black had come up behind the armchairs. 'I've been looking for a Segway into this conversation for at least three minutes.' Patting a laughing Dorcas on the head, he sat himself down next to Lily and snagged a piece of chocolate. Surprised, she watched him toe off his shoes and arrange himself comfortably on the floor. Feeling her gaze on him, Sirius turned his head and with amusement in his eyes, nodded, saying gravely, 'Evans.'

Since the end of fifth year James's behaviour toward Lily may have drastically changed, but so had Sirius's. He and Lily had been paired for a History of Magic assignment a few months ago – a few weeks before she had discovered her jealous tendencies where a certain Daisy Abbot was concerned – and upon learning that they were partners Sirius had come up to her and clapped her on the shoulder, saying, 'I feel that this is the start of something beautiful, Evans.' Feeling confused and a little discomfited by his sudden civility toward her, Lily had suspiciously replied 'I hope you don't think I'm going to do all the work.'

Sirius had laughed and begun assigning the different roles of the project with the bright pink flamingo quill that she had always coveted. 'No, Lilykins! In my experience that would be an extremely dangerous thought for me to have.'

Half an hour into the lesson, Lily had found herself laughing and joking around with the notorious prankster. Suddenly realising how odd it the whole thing was, she had blurted, 'Why are you being so nice to me?'

Kicking his chair off the front two legs and balancing on the back two, Sirius considered the question. 'You're less of a shrew this year. And it helps that every time I'm with my mate – James Potter, you know him?-' she rolled her eyes '-I don't have my ear chewed off about you.' He adopted a falsetto: 'Do you think Lily's noticed my new haircut? Look, Lily ironed her skirt – aren't the pleats crisp? Oh, isn't Lily as majestic as a waterfall?'

Cheeks reddening, Lily said, 'A waterfall?'

'Oh, yes,' Sirius said earnestly. 'I've heard you compared to all sorts of natural wonders, from Dumbledore's lustrous beard, to rich, fertile soil.'

'I'm not sure how I feel about knowing that you discussed my fertility.'

'I assure you, Evans, there is no facet of you that has not been pondered over in labourious detail.'

Since then they had been tentative friends. They would joke around in class and greet each other in passing, but Lily was still surprised when he settled easily next to her in the common room.

Not knowing what to say in reply to his greeting, she thrust the cheese at him. 'Cheese?'

Eyebrows raised, he accepted a piece and Lily showed him how to assemble it with the chocolate and bread, ignoring the moans from Dorcas and Marlene.

Later on, when Sirius had begun to enthusiastically construct his second chocolate-cheese-bread snack, Lily asked, 'Why're you slumming it with the lasses, then, Black?'

Sighing loudly, he said, 'Peter's in detention, Remus is in the li-lib-library-' he pretended to choke on the word '-and Prongs is gagging poor Daisy Abbott with his tongue on the couches behind us.'

Vaguely, Lily heard Marlene ask what Peter's detention was for and Sirius's reply, but a dull buzzing had started in her ears. She could feel Dorcas's eyes in the back of her head.

_The couches behind us…_

Rather feeling as if she were disconnected from her body, she poked her head around the side of Marlene's couch and looked over at the couches in the outer ring around the fireplace.

Sure enough, James Potter and Daisy Abbott were there, curled around each other, snogging with great enthusiasm.

It must be known that what happened next was completely unprecedented. Prior to this, it was well known that Lily Evans was perpetually in control of her facilities. But something had always _snapped_ in her where James Potter was concerned: he had always had the ability to change her from 'that lovely Lily Evans' to 'that raging lunatic' in a split second.

All would have been fine if Lily had just turned back around. Instead of taking the safe option, she heard herself speak, almost as if it were someone else. The question was innocuous, really, but Lily was later informed that she had posed it very loudly (Dorcas may have used the word 'foghorn') and people who weren't really supposed to hear it, did.

'Have they been there the whole time?'

There was a noise like a suction plug as the couple on the couch pulled apart. Both sets of eyes zeroed in on Lily, whose head was poking around the armchair, and who was staring at them as if she had never seen a couple getting to know one another in such a way. It was even worse than a train wreck – it was like watching the train coming towards her at one hundred miles per hour, but all Lily could see was his wonderfully tousled hair and the glint of his glasses – his arms, flung across the back of the couch – how his skin looked gold in the firelight – his eyes, impossibly wide with surprise – the apples of his cheeks reddening – the movement of his Adam's apple as he swallowed… in preparation _to answer Lily's question._ It was only then that she realised what she had done.

He swallowed again, drawing his arm from under Daisy's neck. 'Uh, yes. We've been here a little while,' he said.

_You need to _literally_ pull your head in right now_, her sense was yelling like a mental Howler. But the way James Potter was looking at her, with a mixture of surprise, caution and something else intense and heavy, quickly rendered it mute. His air looked_ so_ soft and touchable and his mouth–

'Are you okay, Lily?'

In her thorough perusal of James, Lily had almost forgotten. _That's right. It takes two to snog_. Daisy's hair was dishevelled and her cheeks were pink and she was frowning at Lily in gentle concern, clearly worried about the other witch's unnatural behaviour. Despite this – and she felt guilty even as she experienced it – Lily had to tamp down an irrational surge of dislike. _No_, she wanted to say. _And I think you shouldn't ever kiss that young man again._ Not trusting herself not to say it just yet – look at what had already happened! Her facilities were seriously out of control – she grappled with words.

Then, before she could even begin to patch things over with some witty repartee about taking notes on technique, an awkward, 'er…' from behind reminded her that there were others – three in fact – who had also been witness to the Great Mouth of Lily Evans, she with the Uncontrollable Facilities, in action.

'Evans?' Sirius was staring at her in astonishment. Marlene was wide-eyed with shock and Dorcas was fighting an incredulous grin.

'I'm sorry,' Lily said suddenly, shaking her head as if to clear her ears from water. 'Wow, sorry! I – I–' she tried to laugh '–I feel a bit weird. I think I'm really tired.'

'Yes,' Dorcas caught on very quickly. 'You were looking pale before. You've been working really late recently. Go to bed, Lil.'

Even Marlene, bless her little soul, chimed in. 'And you do get a bit kooky when you don't sleep.'

'Right.' Zombie-like, Lily rose to her feet. Without looking at anyone, she said with forced lightness, ''S'been lovely fun. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs sno– bite. Bite.'

* * *

Please review!


	4. Honey, Vinegar and Wild Horses

Und part four! Aaaand..\ I lied.. this is so not going to be five chapters. Ten is looking more realistic at the mo.

Thanks to all the reviewers - anons and registered - your support is really awesome :) So please, if you've favourited or followed, please just drop me a review! (yes this is a guilt trip) Even a 'you is shit at writing eat dung' is better than nothing... I think. GIVE ME SOME CHRISTMAS LOVE!

* * *

And So the Plot... Gets Damn Complicated

And so Marlene found out.

Ten minutes after Lily had entered it the brunette stepped cautiously into the sixth year dormitory. At this point the redhead was lying in her bed, fully dressed with the covers up to her chin, numb with disbelief that her mouth could betray her in such an epic fashion. Every now and again she'd let out a little groan and tug the covers higher. Soon they were approaching her hairline.

'Oh, for a Time Turner,' Marlene heard Lily moan as she shut the door quietly behind her.

'Nah,' the newcomer said, coming over to sit on the bed. 'I don't think you need one.'

Lily cracked open one watering eye. 'How the ruddy hell did you work that one out? Where you even watching that, Mar? _Merlin_.' She scrunched up her eyes again and fished a hand out from under the quilt to cover her face. 'Put me out of my misery. _Avada _me here and now.'

'That's a controversial and possibly insensitive statement, given the current social and political climate,' Marlene said lightly, leaning back against her friend's legs.

Lily sighed and amended wryly, 'You always help me put things into perspective, Marlene. Just keep me stupefied for a few years, then. Hire someone to sit my N.E. and then I'll pay you back when their stellar results get me some tremendously high-paying Ministry job.'

Marlene agreed that it was a good idea, but she had left her wand down in the common room, so Lily would have to wait for the moment. Lily would have offered her own wand, but before she could, the other witch said, 'Anyway, it really wasn't that bad. Black thought it was mighty strange, and though he's incredibly thick most of the time, I think he'll figure it out sooner rather than later, but Potter… he didn't…' She paused, frowning. 'He looked astounded, that's for sure – it was a rather telling outburst-' Lily groaned even more loudly than before '-but… I dunno…' Marlene trailed off again, puzzled.

There was silence for a few more minutes as she stared out the window. Just when Lily thought she'd never finish the thought, the girl said, very quietly and cautiously, 'I honestly don't think he'll let himself believe it.' She had an uncommonly sombre look on her face.

'Believe what?' Lily asked, tentatively, after a pause.

'That you could possibly fancy him,' Marlene answered, turning suddenly to pin the redhead with an interrogatory look. There was a calculated purpose for this look: to assess Lily's reaction to the statement.

And react she did.

'What? No!' She clenched the blankets under her chin with an iron grip. 'No – I'm confused and jealous, because – because – hey, don't look at me like that! Let me explain –'

'Listen to yourself, Lil!' Marlene laughed, amusement clear on her face. She looked amazed at the revelation, though. 'I'd never have thought it. You are so far gone.' Instead of replying to that, Lily scrunched her eyes up and groaned long and loud.

'James went off to bed soon after you left,' Marlene continued. 'Said he was tired, too. Sirius followed him after trying to bully information out of Dorcas. She was like a bloody fortress, though, Lil – didn't give anything up.' Marlene pretended to tear up with pride. 'Anyway-' now a frown slipped onto her face '-_she_ explained this lark about you being all jealous over Potter to me. Apparently it's been going on for months and I had no idea! I had to hear it from fun-is-bad-Dorcas! I feel genuinely hurt by that, Evans.'

Marlene wasn't one to hide what she thought – if she felt it, she let everyone present know immediately – so Lily felt quite guilty at that admission. 'Mar... I'm sorry. But it's for that exact reason that Dorcas is the best one to tell these things! She won't have fun with your secrets. Honestly, how long could you have kept it quiet?' That last part wasn't entirely necessary but Lily felt the need to defend herself. 'You'd have gone on about this fancying business, like you are now!'

'No!' Marlene said, her brown eyes flashing. 'I would have slapped this jealousy nonsense out of you! Dorcas'll let you be, but that's not what you need right now. Denial doesn't become you, Lily Evans.'

Lily bit her tongue to keep from retorting angrily. Her fat mouth had done enough damage for tonight. And too much of what Marlene said hit home; she didn't know how to defend herself against those charges. For a few tense minutes both witches stared frostily ahead.

Then Marlene sighed. 'I know-' She stopped short and frowned, picking at the stitching in Lily's quilt. 'I know that this must be hard, Lil. I _know_. I don't want you to think that I think it's simple and it's- it's 'just a crush', you know?' She bit her lip and the other witch watched, entranced, as Marlene McKinnon had one of the most deeply serious moments she had ever witnessed. 'Not saying you love him or anything -' Lily gagged '-but I know that in your head – in _your_ mad head especially – it'll be much more than a simple fancying situation. I mean, you loathed the lad for four years!' Lily winced. 'Publicly humiliated him time and time again with scathing rejections!' Staring reflectively out of the window, Marlene finished with, '_That's_ got to be a tad confusing.'

'I really wish you told me,' she admitted, staring at Lily's quilt again. The redhead felt her heart contract painfully.

It took her a while, but she eventually gulped, 'that I- I… fancy him?' The admission cost her so much it was almost an apology in itself. Marlene smiled widely at it – 'good work! Lilykins: one, denial: zero!' – but Lily still needed to say, 'I'm sorry, McKinnon.'

The girls hugged and made up, and soon Marlene trotted off to bed as well, but Lily lay awake for a long time, trying valiantly not to vomit with nerves at the thought that she most probably fancied James Potter.

* * *

As Marlene had warned her that Sirius might figure out what the strange events in front of the common room fire might mean, Lily planned to avoid him like dragon pox for the time being. Well, really, her plan was to avoid him ever after, but it seemed as if it was working for the first two days.

At dinner she hid herself on the Hufflepuff table. After dinner she went straight to bed and did her homework happily snuggled in her four poster. If she saw Sirius in the corridor she'd literally run in the other direction. Every attempt at evasion seemed to work, but it was also obvious that as actively as she was avoiding him, he was just as actively seeking her out.

Frustrated beyond belief that Lily had managed to 'take ten steps back' from her progress after The Incident, Marlene refused to help her avoid him. 'It's bloody unhealthy,' she insisted. Dorcas and Emmeline – who had been informed about The Incident by a gleeful Marlene – didn't say anything, but Lily could see that they both agreed with Marlene. Annoyed at this betrayal, she determinedly carried out the covert avoidance on her own.

But by the third day it became obvious that the plan to avoid Sirius forever was simply impractical, as he was looking for her with as much determination as she was evading him. And so, when he successfully cornered her after Charms – she had been just a second too late in packing her things when the bell rang – she felt almost relieved. It had been like a to-the-death game of cat and mouse: adrenaline-inducing but terrifying, as the mouse knows that it will be caught eventually. She'd never admit it, not if someone _crucio_-ed it out of her, but Sirius was a formidable cat when he decided that he wanted the mouse dead. And he wanted to talk with Lily, which, in her eyes, was a little like dying.

'Si-Sirius,' she said, her eyes flicking around for an escape. 'Hi.'

Sirius regally inclined his head. 'Evans.' He was standing in front of her desk, arms folded over his chest. There was plenty of room for her to dart away, but Lily had finally accepted the inevitability of this conversation. After a moment's panic, she stiffened her spine and stood still. Chin thrust forward and books clasped to her chest, she said coolly, 'I believe that is my title.'

Grinning, Sirius took a step back. 'Aren't you a picture,' he drawled, sitting on the desk in front of hers. 'Pink cheeks, school books, heels together, prim little braid: you're the perfect square, Evans.' He laughed. 'A cute little square.'

Picking disdainfully at the pilling on her jumper, the square said casually, 'better a square than Azkaban-bound, wouldn't you say?'

Laughing with genuine enjoyment, Sirius admitted, 'you may have a point.' But the laughter was short-lived: he slid off the desk and, slinging an arm around Lily's shoulders, said in a deep American accent, 'Let's take a walk, Evans.'

Acquiescing only after she had shrugged his arm off, Lily followed him out of the classroom. 'Is that a thing? What is that? The accent and– and taking a walk?' Sirius didn't reply.

He led her out into the corridor, which was completely and suspiciously empty: it was usually full of students moving between classes at this time of day. Lily didn't have to comment on this anomaly, though, because Sirius stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to face her. All traces of amusement were gone now. He surveyed her like a war captain might a suspected traitor. She felt frustratingly vulnerable in the empty corridor. Outwardly, though, she held her ground and met his hard stare full-force.

'You fancy James, then,' he said after a long pause, his eyes slightly narrowed, but the rest of his face blank. 'I'm not sure how I feel about that.'

The judgment in his tone caused Lily to fire up immediately. 'I didn't set out to do it!' she said vehemently, glaring at him. 'Fancy him, I mean. Bloody hell, Black, this is no walk in the park for me, I assure you! I have never been more confused and petrified and, frankly, _disturbed_-' she shook her head incredulously '-in the entirety of my short and admittedly uneventful life!' She pinned him with a glare. 'Plus, I don't really care how you feel about it, honestly. If you're upset I'm twenty million times more upset. _Merlin_.'

'Are you really arguing with me about who's more upset about this?' Sirius asked, a grudging smile appearing on his lips. 'Some things never change,' he muttered. The smile fell again from his lips, his face changing in another mercurial shift of emotions. He sighed deeply and scrunched up his forehead. 'Poor timing, Evans,' he said, scrubbing his hand through his hair in what was, Lily noted with a blush, a very James-like show of frustration. '_Appalling_ timing. This really could have been last year. Or three years ago, to be honest.'

An acerbic retort was on the tip of Lily's tongue, but it was only then that she noticed how grim Sirius had become. He was pacing the corridor in front of her, staring at the flagstones. Like a litany, or a stream of consciousness, he began to speak.

'You don't know what you were to him, Evans. You were everything. Everything he _upheld_; all that he thought was _beautiful_ and _good_ and_ true_-' he snorted at the flowery prose and shook his head '-he saw in you. You couldn't change your jumper without it being reported. He had this– this Lily-radar and he'd start twitching like mad if he couldn't sense you on it.' Clearly caught by a fond memory, Sirius chuckled. Again, he quickly sobered.

'But you couldn't stand him, Evans. You'd frequently speak about skinning him with this freakish excitement in your eyes! Think you feel confused now? Upset?' He pinned her with an accusatory glare. 'Imagine what it does to you having the girl of your dreams think you're not worth the dragon dung in Hagrid's pumpkin patch.'

Her pride wouldn't let her quail under his stare, but Lily knew that her shame was written clearly on her face. She quickly tried to mask it, but Sirius had seen it and his tone became a little gentler. 'I think he really began to take it to heart, Evans. He started measuring his worth by what you thought of him.'

The odd feeling that had been building in Lily's stomach during the speech – a nauseating mixture of regret and guilt and misery – was purged in a fit of self-righteousness. 'And too right!' she interjected passionately. At the look of amazement on Sirius's face, she amended guiltily, 'alright, not that, but he _was_ a bully! I might have gotten carried away sometimes–' she staunchly ignored the pointed look on Sirius's face '- but it was all true! He needed to be told that by someone! He was arrogant and he didn't– he always– he made me feel–' Face reddening in anger when Sirius motioned with a finger for her to spit it out, Lily blurted, 'Mocked.' It came out much more loudly than she had expected. More quietly, she said, 'I always thought he was taking the mickey.'

There was absolute silence in the corridor for a good ten seconds. She stared at the tapestry to his right with great intensity. ''Lily Evans, the square,'' she said. ''Let's get her to snap.''

'Evans…' she heard Sirius say, but she wouldn't look at him. 'It wasn't…' He sighed. 'It was _never_ like that. Never. You've got to know that. Surely–' his voice went hoarse with disbelief '-surely you know that.'

Chin in the air and trembling furiously, Lily clenched ber teeth hard against the warning glands in her jaw and stared stubbornly at the tapestry. She shook her head once, jerkily.

There was a good deal of silence before the final admission. 'He_ loved _you, Lily.'

She thrust her chin up higher and forcibly gulped back tears. _He - I... what?_

There was silence for a good minute. It would be fair to say that Lily was in a state of profound shock, but Sirius was Sirius and he had exhausted his supply of sensitivity for the day. Anger blooming again on his face, he resumed pacing; each step a caged, frustrated movement. 'He loved you! And he finally gets over you after four years –_ four years_!' his eyes widened in incredulity as he swung around to stare at her again. He shook his hands in the air and made a wild noise. 'Four years of relentless infatuation and repeated kicks when he was down! Each time he put himself out there for you, Evans – you might have thought he was taking the mick, but he was putting his- his bloody _heart_ out there for you! – he was crushed!'

Overcome by anger, or some other intense emotion, Sirius swivelled so that his back was to Lily - still battling tears with everything in her - and became suddenly still. He clasped his forehead with a hand and exhaled loudly. After two more deep breaths in and out, he began again more quietly, still facing away from her.

'Abbott might not be you, Evans, but James seems finally… _alright_... again. For the first time in _four year_s. She's funny, she's pretty and she may not be you, but she's an alright bird and she genuinely likes him, Evans.'

Lily's throat was aching so terribly that it would have been bliss to let it go, but she couldn't – just stared at Sirius's back, and, in her mind, watched James's face fall after each rejection. All one hundred and thirty seven of them. _Merlin.__  
_

'And you know what's the worst part?' Sirius swung around and pinned her with a fierce look that she struggled to meet. 'Prongs came to me the day Daisy asked him out and said – and I'll never forget the amazement in his voice, Evans – 'she really likes me.' He just kept saying it. He was beside himself. He couldn't believe that Abbott genuinely _liked_ him.' Sirius railed her with a glare that could have shaken Dumbledore.

But then the Fat Mouth of Lily Evans struck again. And it looked fatal.

'_She_ asked_ him_ out?'

It was out before she could stop it – an incredulous thought so strong it seemed automatically vocalized.

'Holy shit, Evans!' Sirius growled, furious. 'Is that all you heard?'

Lily screwed her eyes shut. 'I didn't mean that. I mean I–'

But Sirius wouldn't hear any of it. Fury blazing across his features, he spat, 'All of a sudden he pulls his head in and Lily Evans is a convert, huh? Or was it when he stopped mooning over you like an idiot? What was it, Evans? Which one?'

Angry now, Lily fired back, 'It was _not_, you git! He grew up – about bloody time, by the way! – and I found that- that I _liked_ who he'd become! Not because he- because he-' She was so incensed by the accusation that she couldn't get the words out.

They stood, a meter apart in the empty corridor, staring at each other with pure venom in their eyes.

Then, quite suddenly and extremely unexpectedly, the anger dissolved from Sirius's face. 'Wait a minute.' He stared at her with a face empty of expression for a few moments.

His eyes left Lily's and wandered blankly up the wall behind her. 'Last term – Marlene's – I'd forgotten…' The words were disjointed and Lily, absolutely baffled by the extreme about-turn the argument had taken, stood, staring in absolute disbelief as Sirius Black appeared to have an epiphany.

A frown grew on his face. 'Then this means…' His eyes slid to Lily, back in focus all of a sudden. 'This means…'

As he stared at her, very slowly, the frown became a disbelieving grin. With an ecstatic hoot, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her from head to toe.

'What– Black-'

'When your honey and your vinegar are both failing to do the job, you ignore the wild horse for a little while, am I right?' His grin was positively victorious.

He might as well have confounded her. Lily babbled hysterically, 'What? What are you on about? _Wild horse_?'

Completely ignoring her, Sirius clapped his hands together. 'Oh, ho ho, Evans!' he boomed gleefully. 'Give 'em a bit of honey and then walk away. Nine times out of ten the wild horse will follow!'

'That is _not_ the saying.' It sounded a bit too triumphant for poor Lily's liking, and there was reason for this, because, ignoring her completely, the next thing he said was, 'You've been _broken_, Lily Evans!'

So profound was her shock at this statement, she could do nothing but gape at him for a good ten seconds. Then, '_What?_' she spluttered.

'Do you remember Marlene's party last year?' he asked, grabbing her shoulders again, his eyes flicking quickly over her face. 'He had given up on you – he had decided to put you away – but he wasn't over you; not really. So that was his plan. Leave you alone. Leave you alone and maybe, just maybe, you'd come to him.'

He stared at her in silence with wide eyes for a good five seconds. Then his hands dropped to his sides. 'And it worked. You came.' But the excitement had gone out of him as quickly as it had come; the victory was obviously a little hollower than he'd originally seen. 'But he's with Abbott, Evans.' He took a step back and put his hands in his pockets, now looking at her with a mistrust that chilled Lily to the bone. 'You don't– you don't know how this will mess him up. You can ruin him, Evans. You call and he comes running.'

An emptiness that she'd never experienced before now filled Lily. It was a bit like hopelessness, she thought, and it started in her stomach and crept slowly outwards, numbing her limbs. Wordlessly, the fight gone from her completely, she nodded. She felt hollow.

Then Sirius nodded and with one final look at her, walked away.

Things suddenly looked a little more complicated than she'd anticipated.

_Dear me._


	5. The Square's at Square One

Hey hey! It's been a while, but it's hard to concentrate in 47 odd degree heat every day. It's awesome to think that half of you guys look outside to see snow at the moment, while we battle a heatwave here in Aus. Anyways! Enjoy the chappie!

* * *

Square One.

As she had for the previous two nights, Lily went straight to bed after dinner. She didn't think that she'd sleep, but she did – for sixteen hours. It was midday when she finally awoke.

For a very long time she lay in her bed, watching the dust motes hang suspended in the sun streaming through the open window next to Emmeline's bed. It was so quiet. Alone in the soft yellow light it was easy to slowly and carefully sort through her thoughts. They were terrifically tangled at this point, but, staring into that lovely shaft of gold, she combed them through. In her warm bed, yesterday's argument with Sirius looked completely unremarkable. She yawned comfortably.

After a while of this meticulous, plodding type of thinking, she managed to sort her thoughts into three different boxes. The confusion box – _this fancying business is doing my head in! _Expletive, expletive, expletive – the guilt box – _I am a horrible person_ – and the fear box – _Daisy and Sirius and possibly Remus and James either want to, or will soon want to kill me._

Happy with her work, she thought vaguely about going to classes, but discovered that she had not the slightest inclination to leave her bed: alone in the soft yellow light everything made sense for the first time in a while.

* * *

Four hours later, toeing off her shoes and loosening her tie, Emmeline took a running leap for her own bed with a war cry of 'hold me!' She landed face first on the covers with her arms and legs splayed like a large starfish. After a few minutes of lying like this, she turned her face to the side and regarded Lily with a frown.

'You missed the wonderfully spontaneous quiz that Vector sprung on us today. Should have seen the look of glee on the sadist's face. Kept saying that spontaneity was the spice of life. I really think that's as spicy as the poor bugger's life gets.' Her frown deepened. 'You promised to always have my back in that class, Evans. You were supposed to sit next to me and slip me the answers.'

'I did help,' Lily said comfortably. 'I could feel your tortured soul all the way over here. It came crawling up the tower stairs, covered in ancient runes written in Vector's blood and I sang to it. Did you feel strangely calm at any point? That was me.'

'No,' the blonde said shortly. 'You've got a shit singing voice.' Then she moaned loudly. 'I bet I failed that quiz. You're a bum. A great big bum with cellulite and curly hairs and bum-acne.'

'Bum-ne,' Lily snorted. The laughter ended on a falling note and she sighed happily. '_Ah_.' She folded her arms beneath her head and swivelled to look at Emmeline, now reclined in a similar fashion on the bed next to hers. 'I've been in this bed for almost twenty four hours,' she informed the other witch.

Emmeline nodded, staring up at the ceiling. 'Fair effort.'

Lily yawned. 'I'm gonna go for a full thirty six.'

Frowning again, Emmeline looked over at her. 'Will you be able to walk in the morning? Can you feel your feet? You missed every meal!' she exclaimed, shooting up. 'You'll be as weak as a newly-sorted Slytherin when you try to stand again.'

'It's alright. I had the emergency hamper under my bed. I ate plenty of nutritious dairy products.' That meant chocolate and nothing else. 'As for being able to walk-' Lily tried to connect to her toes and failed '-the little buggers can't be bothered being found.' Concentrating hard, she finally located them and gave them a pathetic little wiggle.

'Do you want to talk about yesterday?'

Lily shook her head.

Emmeline sighed. 'Um-' her voice had taken on a guilty edge which caused Lily's head to swing around suspiciously '-you've heard that thing about the messenger and not shooting him, right?' At the slow nod from the adjacent bed she continued cautiously, 'well, skipping over the part where she threatened to make you eat your own liver-' Lily's eyes widened and her first, terrified thought was, _I didn't think Daisy had it in her_ '-Marlene-' she relaxed: threats from Marlene weren't thin on the ground '-would like you to come down to dinner.'

'That's not a nice way to ask,' said the redhead ruefully after a pause. 'If Marlene's not careful she will hurt my feelings one day.'

'She also thinks you're a weak bint with a taste for melodrama.'

Wounded, the weak bint said in a very powerful voice, 'and she's a violent extremist with no moral compass or social skills! What a nasty piece of work!' Lily stared at the ceiling, fuming at Marlene's nerve.

Emmeline hummed thoughtfully. 'So, do you like the taste of liver?'

* * *

Lily's legs didn't give out when she stepped out of bed for the first time in a whole day, but they almost did when she sat down at the house table in the Great Hall and found that a certain two Gryffindors were staring at her from their seats.

It wasn't a collective, _oh, you've caught us whispering cattily about you_, type thing. It was clear that each boy thought he was alone in accosting Lily Evans with his eyes and each had separate reasons for doing so.

Remus was merely curious. Sirius would no doubt have told him all about yesterday and Lily felt herself draw back a little, but the sandy-haired boy's face was clear and guileless, besides evident curiousity. Come to think of it, when they had spoken after Ancient Runes a few days ago Remus had seemed quite open-minded about the whole thing. At the time she had been panicking because he had found her out, but looking back, had he been supporting her? _No. No - not quite._ But he hadn't seemed overly averse to the whole thing. The look he was giving her now meant he wanted to know what her side of the story was, she could tell that much. He was interested to know if anything had progressed. Shakily, she gave him a smile and quick nod that said_ later_.

Sirius was looking decidedly less open-minded. The expression on his face was also considerably less hostile than yesterday, though, which she supposed was an improvement. He had his elbows on the table and a loaded forkful of sausage and potato hovering in the air before his slightly narrowed eyes.

Standing up as tall as she could, Lily narrowed her own eyes at him in a full-on glare. So powerful was the glare that when poor Edmund Boot, sitting next to Sirius, chose at that moment to swing around and reach for the pumpkin juice, he looked up at Lily, screamed, and dropped the jug in Sirius's lap. That was an unplanned success in itself and a laugh broke her furious expression when Sirius shrieked loudly and bolted out of his seat.

But Lily's laughter died very quickly.

Because the dark-haired boy who had been sitting with his back to her had swivelled on the bench to find what had scared poor Edmund. And he was staring at her with an intensity which actually made her knees buckle. She literally wobbled on the spot, standing between the Ravenclaw and Gryffindor tables.

The look on James Potter's face was the most terrifying of all three stares, because there was something _new_ in his expression.

It wasn't resentment, or apathy or indifference. It wasn't the _look, there's Evans again_ look which had preceded Sirius's glare. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time in a long while. His eyes were wide and curious and assessing and… alive. The gold flecks in the hazel were as bright as the yellow flames on the candles that hovered above his seat. And as he stared at her, and she stared back, Lily felt herself wake up. Every nerve ending in her fingertips, in her toes, all over her skin _woke up_ as if they had been asleep up until this moment.

And it was the most terrifying thing she had ever felt. More terrifying than admitting that she had feelings for James Potter was standing in the middle of the Great Hall, her eyes connected immovably to his, feeling as if she would explode from simply _feeling._

_How is this possible_? Lily thought with wonder as she stood there impeding traffic. Something incredible was happening, and even as she felt her face burn with colour and the faintest pink tinged the skin over James's collarbone, they continued to stare at each other. It wasn't… _hope…_ in his eyes, was it? _No,_ she tamped down the irrational surge of the same emotion which exploded in her own stomach. The look was too cautious for that; too fragile. But it was new; fresh; alive.

The look lasted maybe ten seconds, maybe less, but it was possibly the most significant moment of Lily Evan's admittedly unexciting life so far. Because although James Potter suddenly broke the gaze a second later and both hurriedly and jerkily swung back around in his seat, she had seen what she had needed to see. All of a sudden she was fired by a conviction and a determination that she had never had for anything else.

He had been beaten down. She had trodden on him one hundred and thirty seven times – undoubtedly more – but still, incredibly, there had been a spark in his expression that Lily suddenly knew she had to fan back to life.

She stood there between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables, staring at the back of James Potter's head, face flaming red.

_It looks like it's your turn to be chased, Potter._

* * *

At the prefect meeting that night Phillip McMillan and Frida Davies were assigning corridors for house teams to decorate. In the Wizarding world, the birthdays of mark were seven, seventeen, seventy and one hundred and seven and in two weeks it would be Dumbledore's one hundredth and seventh birthday. The teachers were planning a ball – though it would be less _ball_ and more _rave_ if the sixth and seventh years had anything to do with it – and had assigned all decorating responsibilities to the prefects and heads.

Normally Lily would be the first to volunteer for something like this but today she sat, fingers writhing in her lap, mind whirring, meticulously planning Stage One.

Quickly, it must be known that Lily Evans had no intention of becoming a home-wrecker. James was dating Daisy and she respected that… mostly. She had no intentions of luring him away from Daisy. Well, yes, she did, but not in any maliciously underhand way.

_And so_, she thought, staring absently at the portrait of Egbert the Egregious above McMillan's left shoulder,_ stage one should be simple; uncalculated. _

_Stage One: be his friend._

She told that to Remus after the meeting. He had been listening to the heads talking, though only because he had noticed that _she _hadn't been listening, and to that end he approached her to grouch as they shuffled out of the meeting.

'Something's really eating you,' he said, falling into step beside her down the corridor. 'The last time I had to listen in a prefect meeting was… my first one, actually.'

Feigning surprise, Lily shot him a sideways look. 'Quiet, studious Remus Lupin shirking his prefect responsibilities?'

'No longer, unfortunately,' he mourned. 'Can I just say how shocked I was to find it even _more_ boring than the first time I listened?'

'Well,' Lily said, heaving her bag strap over her shoulder, 'I am super grateful you listened, Remus, because I-' she shot him an excited smile '-have figured out what I'm going to do.'

Remus frowned. 'With the decorating? But you weren't–'

'No!' Lily stopped, blushing. A quick head check ensured that only Frida and Phillip remained, talking seriously by the door, and so she continued with a fervent whisper of 'about James.'

Eyes widening impossibly, Remus shot a look at Frida and Phillip – who were standing suspiciously close together even though Lily _knew _that Frida and Arj Patil were going out – and then ushered Lily onward. '_Yes,_' he dragged out the word as they jumped onto a staircase which began to swing in the direction of Gryffindor tower.

'I'm starting off slowly,' she said, hugging her bag to her chest and steadying herself on the banister as the staircase swung upwards. 'I'm going to be his friend.'

'What?' Remus's eyes widened even further. 'I'm sorry,' he said, backtracking quickly at Lily's frown. 'It's not that I don't think it's possible, I just never… really... thought it _was_ possible. _Really_.'

Waving a dismissive hand, she said impatiently, 'Yes, I know, but the day_ has_ come and I_ will_ succeed.'

'Right. _Gillyweed._' The dozing Fat Lady swung open with a squawk at being awakened. Lily stepped through and suddenly stopped short, causing Remus to collide with her back.

'Well,' came the whisper from behind after a pause. 'It looks like stage one begins now.'

A familiar head of black hair in a chair not two metres away had turned toward them when the portrait opened. James Potter was staring directly at her. He had his transfiguration textbook open in his lap and his tie around his forehead. His eyes were wide, trained upon Lily, and his lips were parted in surprise. A hand hovered above the book, clearly suspended in the act of turning the page.

How many times had he seen her walk through the portrait hole? She was a busy witch, so it would be a high count. Why was he surprised to see her? she wondered absently, somewhere in the back of her brain. She fancied him, so it was only natural that the sight of him caused her to grow roots.

But, honestly, most of her brain was focused on something else entirely. Something a whole lot shallower.

There he was, only a few steps away; hair dishevelled, limbs loose and relaxed, his whole person languid and easy after a long day. _Merlin_, had she never looked at his lips before? They looked so – _Stop right there! Bloody hell,_ she was genuinely losing her mind… but the way he was reclining in that chair (big enough for two, she noted) absolutely begged cuddling… and he was staring at her, eyes wide and golden from this distance, as if he had never seen her before –

Remus nudged her in the back. Hard. 'Stage one?' came the whispered question. Then he slipped around her, whacked James on the back, hard, and continued past them, settling down next to Arabella Scotts and Bertie Thomas by the fireplace.

And so Lily was left alone by the portrait hole, mind racing, as James Potter sat watching her with his tie drooping down his left cheek.

_Oh God, oh Merlin – think of something to say. Something to say, you daft bint! Think – think – small talk. Oh Merlin, bloody hell, shit, go, anything –_

'That's… festive. Your tie.'

The two words could not have been posed with any more awkward an inflection. Nor could the following gesture to the tie in mention have been any lamer.

'Festive?' he repeated after a pause. 'How's that?' The faintest hint of an upwards curve was now at his lips.

_Oh, darn. What did I even mean by that?_ Her voice was shaky_._ 'Um. I – I dunno. I just–' _Shit. Shit, shit_ '-well, it's nearly… Easter.' _Die now, Evans. _'Don't they do that thing– you know that tie thing they do in– in Peru?'

'Peru?' He was definitely smiling now. 'I'm not sure. It's closer to my birthday than Easter, anyway, so it could be in celebration of that, I suppose.' His voice was smooth and amused now, where a moment a go he had been as surprised and nervous as she was.

_He thinks he's got the upper hand_, Lily realised with anger. _I've acted all daft and now he thinks he's in control._ A familiar churning had begun in her gut. Her palms felt sweaty and if she was a cartoon character a black thundercloud would have been brewing above her head. _Oh, no. Not again._ James was leaning back in his chair, smiling up at her. 'Peru,' he chortled quietly. 'Oh, Evans, how I've missed you.'

The innocent little grin that accompanied the last proclamation broke the proverbial camel's back. 'I don't – you're such – you – _ugh._'

And with that stellar and cutting rebuttal, Lily stormed past a shocked James, up the staircase and barricaded herself within her four poster until time ended.

* * *

What do you think? Whether you thought it deserves to be shat on by a dragon - I'd like to know :)


	6. Eat Your Own Liver

Cha-cha-chapter six!

* * *

Stage One, Damage Control

'I spoke to Remus,' were the surprisingly balanced first words out of Marlene's mouth. 'And we both reckon you're an idiot.'

Lying atop the covers on her bed, Lily rolled over onto her back. Recently she had spent a whole lot of time in this position and it was entirely James Potter's fault. _Wow, massive double entrendre there._

'Remus said that?'

'Well, it was inferred. I interpreted.' Heaving her bulging book-bag over to her own bed, Marlene began shucking her robes in her usual fashion – loudly and with no particular consideration for Dorcas and Emmeline who were, at this unrespectable hour, sleeping. As the head of the Charms Club – a position Lily had grudgingly relinquished when she became a Prefect – Marlene often came in late.

'You interpreted, did you?'

'Yes.'

Lily heaved herself into a sitting position and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her fingers began to absently fiddle with her quilt. 'Right. Well. What did he say? The un-interpreted version, thanks.'

Marlene snorted and stepped into her pyjamas. 'He didn't need to say much. Just told me about Operation Chase James, and that when you went to implement stage one you lost your nut after the exchange of about two sentences. And, as usual-' she pulled back the hangings on her four-poster '-there was absolutely no good reason for it. Remus heard the whole thing from where he was sitting. Apparently he mentioned Panama-'

'Peru!'

'-some South American country and you stormed off like a three year-old.'

'Panama's in Central America.' Even at the very bottom of a Lily-made hole, the witch couldn't help but fire up in defence at the filthy look Marlene shot her. 'He was being condescending!'

'He was having a laugh! You said something stupid and he had a laugh about it!'

'At my expense!'

'Well then maybe you should learn to laugh at yourself! God knows he can do it.' Marlene pulled her hangings across the bed so that her form was obscured behind them. After a while Lily did the same. Moments later the lamps dimmed and the only light in the dormitory streamed thinly through the open window.

When Lily – confused and upset – had begun to think that that was it for the night and she had better start praying for sleep, Marlene spoke again.

'Do you ever think that maybe it isn't just him who needed to change? In order for this bat shit-crazy plan of yours to work?'

She let the statement ring through the otherwise silent dormitory for a full minute before continuing gently, 'you used to say that something inside you just blew up when you saw him, and that you couldn't help it, but I don't think you ever tried to.'

There was silence for another good minute before Lily said into the darkness, 'are you trying to make me hate you?'

'Nah,' came the quiet reply from the other bed. 'I just like you too much to keep my mouth shut when you're ruining your own life. Now shut up, go to sleep, and try to grow up a bit in the next ten hours. Tomorrow is Stage One Damage Control.'

* * *

Much to Lily's dismay, Marlene filled Dorcas in on the happenings of the day before on the way down to breakfast. In her own, tactful Dorcas way, the newly-informed witch agreed that Lily would have to make a concerted effort to rein in her violent temper if she ever wanted Operation Chase James Potter to 'bear any fruit', as it was so delicately put.

'What fruit?' asked Marlene blankly as they circumvented a group of loitering Ravenclaws on their way through the Entrance Hall. 'You mean offspring?'

'No, you twit,' Dorcas said. 'Though that won't happen either if Lily chops his thingo off in a fit of rage.'

Lily had a large unopened jar of peanut butter – which had arrived by owl from her mother like a timely miracle that morning – stowed under her arm and so focused her mind on toast as Marlene and Dorcas speculated on the probability of James losing his man-parts to her butter-knife before Potions.

As she had refused to leave the dormitory until Emmeline had returned from breakfast to report that one James Potter had eaten early due to a Quidditch practise, the Gryffindor table was gloriously free of him. Unfortunately, as the fates would have it, the nearest toast-rack was nowhere near Lily's plate and naturally the closest one was directly in front of Remus Lupin.

'Gen,' she said quietly to the fifth year next to her, 'I'd never ask otherwise, but I'm – I've – well, could you possibly-'

'Evans.'

Marlene had chosen that moment to swing around and overhear. Poor, confused Genevieve Clearwater was forbidden from leaving her seat, which then saw Lily creep down the table, snatch up the toast rack to a furious outcry from a group of bereaved sixth year boys and run back to her seat. All seemed swell for a while, but as soon as she had her peanut butter-laden knife poised, toast-bound, a soft cough by her left shoulder halted its progression. The outrage of the boys she had stolen from – Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Andrew Hopkins and Lance Boot – had reached an incredible level and, in keeping with her stellar luck, the diplomat sent to ease the toast tensions was in fact none other than the person she had been trying to avoid.

'Lily,' Remus said in greeting. From his elevated position, his frown fell down upon her like lead.

'Remus,' she returned nervously. 'I suppose you want your pilfered vittles back, then?'

'Yes,' he said, turning to look back at the rioters. 'But I also want a word.' His tone was grim.

'Yes, I suppose you do,' she said, quaveringly, her hopes hinging on the probability that Remus was too nice to bring yesterday up at the crowded breakfast table.

'After Transfiguration, then?' he said, an eyebrow rising with his question. Lily nodded, surrendered her toast and pinched Marlene hard when she said smugly, 'well, you're in for it.'

A few minutes later, after a furious Marlene had removed herself from the table to get Pomfrey to check if the pinch 'had gone septic', Lily was left alone with Dorcas, who was reading the _Daily Prophet._ In retaliation for the pinch, Marlene had charmed her jar peanut butter into fig jam – in Lily's opinion the abomination of the jam world – before she left for the hospital wing. Not knowing the specific counter-charm, Lily had only been able to conjure up some strange, granule-y, chopped nuts sludge.

'All I wanted was a bit of toast,' said the redhead mournfully.

Dorcas looked up from _the Prophet_ in surprise. 'This is so not about toast. And did you honestly think this was going to be easy?' she said incredulously. 'Given you and James's history?'

Lily didn't need to answer that: it was rapidly becoming clear to her – and everyone else involved, it seemed – that Operation Chase James Potter was going to be anything but smooth and structured.

* * *

'He's disappointed,' Remus said soberly when he had cornered Lily after Transfiguration. 'I think he allowed himself to hope – just a tiny bit – that things could be different between you two.'

'I know, I know,' Lily said, frustrated beyond belief with herself. Remus had told her what had happened after she had gone to bed: apparently James had sat there like he'd been hit by a Silencing charm for a good five minutes before he had taken himself quietly off to bed, muttering 'stupid, _stupid_ idea.'

'_Merlin_,' Lily groaned. 'If I could have just kept my fat gob _shut_.'

Remus watched her beat herself up for a few minutes and then said, 'I don't think all's lost yet.' His face was thoughtful.

'What?' she paused in her self-flagellation. 'How?'

* * *

Never had one ever approached the Gryffindor table with such trepidation as Lily Evans did that lunchtime. She was torn between two major feelings: shame – _my pride will never recover from _this – and fear – _what if he doesn't say anything? What if he – no, don't think about it. _

Remus was shadowing her faithfully; every time her steps faltered a little bit, he'd give her an encouraging but firm nudge in the back with his wand. Actually, it felt more threatening than encouraging. _Must remember to cross 'wisdom' and 'gentleness' off Remus's list of virtues._ They halted finally behind James Potter, who was scribbling a very last-minute paragraph onto the bottom of a Defence Against the Dark Arts essay about legal _Imperius_ curse alternatives.

'Potter?' _Oh, Merlin, Jesus, God, smite me where I stand. _'Uh, Potter?'

His back stiffened. Slowly, he swung around. Surprise was clear on his face and his eyebrows had shot up his forehead.

'Evans,' he said, blinking. Even with his hair freshly washed and oh-so-soft looking – _get a grip, Evans_ – the voluminous mass was untamable and, looking up at her, he had to push stray strands off his glasses. His eyes, wide with surprise, flicked across to Remus, still standing behind her.

_Are you a weak bint with a taste for melodrama? No, sirree. _

'What –'

'I'm sorry,' she blurted.

Now James was shocked. 'Ev-'

'For yesterday, I mean. I – er – the prefect meeting was intense and I was drained, hungry – you know. Yes, well, I'm sorry.'

The surprise on his face gave way to a small smile. 'Discussions about Dumbledore's birthday decorations got intense, did they?'

Maybe it was stupid of James to say that, given what Lily was apologising for. Almost as soon as he said it he seemed to realise his mistake and looked at her as if anticipating a blow up.

Surely enough, Lily had interpreted the question as a mockery and had begun to steam, but Remus's warning wand at her back cut through the fury.

Five minutes ago in the Entrance Hall, as the hungry luncheoners streamed past them into the Great Hall, Remus had taken her aside for a final pep talk. 'One thing you will have to accept eventually about James Potter is his firm resolve to see the hilarity in any situation,' Remus had said. She had nodded, and would have charged into the Great Hall, fired as she was by adrenaline for Operation Chase James Potter that would quickly dwindle the closer she got to his seat at the Gryffindor table, but Remus held her back.

'I know you've been at the receiving end of his… sense of humour… for a number of years,' he said seriously, and she rolled her eyes, but Remus shook his head. 'You don't understand – Sirius told me about your… conversation.'

Lily sighed. 'And? You're now convinced I'm an awful person?'

'No, I'm just saying that I know you felt that they were taking the mickey.'

Surprised and a little uncomfortable now, Lily waved it off. 'No – it's – I was just overthinking–'

'No,' Remus said again, firmly this time. 'That's not it. Bu it's not important right now; all I'm saying is that you shouldn't automatically assume that he's making fun of you.'

So, standing now in the Great Hall in front of James Potter, Lily forced a smile, said, 'Right. Yes. Ha, ha. Best be off,' and pivoted like she was in the air force.

Embarrassment creeping slowly and surely over her, she made her way down the table to where Alice, Mary and Marlene were sitting. _What was that? Ha, ha, best be off_?_ You are so cripplingly, mind-bogglingly and excruciatingly _lame.

When she had seated herself, face burning red, she told a curious Marlene what had happened in an undertone. To her surprise, the other witch looked pleasantly shocked. 'Well I never. You apologised to James Potter? Where are the flying pigs?'

'I know, I know,' Lily said, anxiously shredding the roll she was supposed to be buttering, 'but you should have heard me, Mar–' her voice went weak with humiliation. 'And then I pivoted. I_ pivoted_.'

'That is lamentable,' Marlene said robustly, nodding in a forceful way as she tipped the fluffy mess of Lily's ex-bread roll from her plate and replaced it with another one. 'But Potter still has his nads, and that, I think, can only be a positive.' She looked up from her plate and smiled. 'Looks like he's happy about it, too.'

Without permission, Lily's head swivelled around at this last comment. Her eyes found him immediately – these days she could find him in a room of bespectacled, athletic, black-haired boys all wearing the same colour as if he flashed neon green or something else unnaturally conspicuous. A small thread of hope wound its way around her large intestine. It felt rather like gas.

He was staring down at his plate, the tiniest of smiles pulling at his lips. Sirius was looking surly, Peter was gargling his pumpkin juice and Remus was eating his steak and mushroom pie with a calm and steady hand. The little smile grew until a fully-fledged grin was on his lips, and then James speared a potato and catapulted it into Peter's open mouth. The boy choked on the legume, which appeared to have flown straight down his windpipe, and all the surrounding students were showered in frothy juice.

'-which is clearly rubbish.'

Marlene's voice pulled Lily back to their portion of table. Unaware that her comment had caused her friend's attention to waver, Marlene had continued speaking and Lily found suddenly she had no idea what the other witch was talking about. A bit flustered, she said, 'sorry, what were you saying?'

Marlene snorted. 'Obviously nothing worth listening to, Evans,' she said. 'Just that I'm glad Remus took over damage control. Reparation of delicate issues isn't really my forte.'

* * *

Next chapter is gonna be a big un. Who wants to get to know James a bit more?


	7. Charms vs Muggle Studies

Thanks to all who reviewed! Every single one made me so happy.

* * *

A Moral Dilemma

She didn't see James properly for the next three days. They had no shared classes on a Friday, and with the quarter final match against Hufflepuff coming up the Quidditch Captain had scheduled long training sessions across the weekend. As to how he managed to train when the Quidditch pitch was booked by the three other houses all weekend Lily would never know. She was further baffled when on Saturday afternoon she passed the entirety of the glum-looking Gryffindor team standing at the end of a corridor on the seventh floor as James paced, muttering to himself in front of a blank stretch of wall. Confused or no, she found herself commenting quite loudly – and within earshot of Sirius Black – to a bemused Alice Prewett, that she really admired and respected that kind of determination in a wizard.

With the exception of a moment at lunch on Sunday - she found herself seriously evaluating whether or not to partially transfigure Mary's bottle of _Cheeky Cherubim Yellow_ into a butter dish near Daisy Abbott's plate. She couldn't decide whether the inevitable consequences would exceed the happiness she'd get from watching the witch spread her toast with nail polish - the weekend passed without event. Thus, it was with a false sense of security – having been able to safely and happily fantasise about a certain Marauder all weekend – that Lily headed down to breakfast with Alice and Dorcas on Monday morning.

Marlene had reserved a spot for them at the Gryffindor bench by spreading _the Daily Prophet_ across more table than was probably necessary. She and Mary were loudly debating the ethics of _the Prophet_ advertising discount sleepwear right next to an article about a woman in Leeds who was strangled by her pyjamas last Friday. From the sounds of it, Marlene thought it was all 'just business' and not to read too far into it, and Mary thought it was 'most insensitive'. Dermot Weasley and Frank Longbottom, sitting either side of the witches, were both trying to contribute to the conversation and failing to get a word in.

Rolling her eyes at the scene, Alice moved around the table to perch in Frank's lap and Dorcas shuffled in next to Marlene. This left Lily next to Dermot, who was in turn right next to Peter Pettigrew, who had employed a similar technique to Marlene's of reserving bench-space. Instead of a newspaper, however, he had removed his trainers and put one on either side of the table, obviously expecting that the stench emanating from the footwear (and most probably the rumour put about by Stephen Pringle in third year that the Marauder had noxious foot-fungus) would dissuade unwelcome benchwarmers. After a moment's hesitation – _are you a weak bint, Lily Evans?_ – Lily slid in next to Dermot, who began to tell her about his brother's promotion; 'now he's assistant to the head of the Improper Use of Magic Office,' he was saying enthusiastically before she knew what he was talking about.

By now Mary and Marlene's conversation had evolved into a deep and heated argument about consumerism. Very soon it had expanded to include most of the surrounding Gryffindors, including a vastly amused and now well-distracted Lily.

When a particularly swotty second year by the name of Adella Creevey stood up to give an impassioned speech about corporate greed in the Ministry of Magic, Dermot, turning to share a raised eyebrows-type of look with Lily, accidentally elbowed her plate of toast off the table. It was only when she had risen from under the table with the dusty toast, laughingly dismissing Dermot's fervent apologies, and reached for the toast rack in front of Peter that she noticed that his shoes were back on their respective feet. And in their place were Remus, Sirius and James Potter.

Sirius was complaining that the smell of Peter's feet had got into all the surrounding food and that he was too disgusted to eat, all the while shovelling porridge into his mouth. James, chin in hand and elbow on table, had adopted a simpering expression and would try to smooth the irate Sirius's hair out of his eyes whenever his defending hand was busy with the porridge spoon. Lily felt her cheeks heat and her throat tighten. Whatever it was she had been saying to Dermot trailed off into nothingness.

'What a rubbish day,' Sirius was moaning. 'We've got – _stop_ doing that, you _absolute _twat – _listen,_ we've got Potions first and then – _Merlin,_ Prongs, I'm about to_ castrate_ you!' He slapped James's hand away. 'Tell him to stop!' he said to Remus, who was peacefully reading his newspaper. 'Get the great prat in line!'

'Poor baby.' Remus muttered, eyes still glued to his copy of _the Prophet_. 'Is it very hard?'

'Yes,' snarled Sirius. 'It bloody well is. We've got a rubbish day, I've got a hangover, Pete's feet stink _and_ I'm in a moral dilemma. It bloody well _is _hard, you tosser.'

'A moral dilemma?' Peter chimed in with shock. 'Do you know what that is? Can you spell that?'

Looking up with a smirk, Remus said, 'I'll admit that is a first, Padfoot. And the hangover is entirely your own fault.'

Sirius was about to respond, but James flopped a limp wrist in his face, cooing, 'is precious feeling poorly?'

Bellowing mightily, Sirius leapt up and shoved his mate bodily from the bench.

At this moment, Dermot, who seemed to have been drawn out of the debate to their left, muttered in Lily's ear. 'I didn't know Black had such a temper on him. He always seemed like the pinnacle of ennui to me.'

Lily didn't know what ennui meant, but Dermot was the intellectual type and probably thought she was too, so she just nodded and hummed. Almost crying with laughter, James had collected himself off the flagstones. He stood, panting, hands braced on his knees to keep himself standing.

'Now, _now_… precious–' he wheezed between laughs, jumping back to avoid Sirius's vicious right hook. 'We mustn't… exert… ourselves!'

Since happenings to Lily and Dermot's right had become violent, Mary and Marlene had lost a good portion of their audience. They were left to happily chew the other's head off while their previous spectators now enjoyed Sirius losing his nut as their light mealtime entertainment.

'Come on, you've got me interested, Black – what's this moral dilemma?' Andrew Hopkins called to Sirius, who was daring James to take his seat again with raised eyebrows. Shooting a last filthy look at his mate, Sirius sat down again and said, 'Since you asked so nicely, Hoppy.' He straightened his back, stole James's glasses – 'They're a necessary prop for story time, you selfish bastard' – licked his palms and slicked his hair back in a truly disgusting manner.

'Well –' he coughed and deepened his voice to a rumbling bass '-young Hopkins. My moral dilemma is this: a friend of mine –' he frowned, thinking '- in a younger year really _loved_… Divination… and – but he wasn't any good at it.' The rumbling bass was abandoned somewhere toward the end of the sentence as Sirius realised that impromptu storytelling took a bit more brainpower than he had to spare. 'So he dropped the darn subject – and about time, I say – and took up… _Muggle Studies_… which he found he's really good at, though he doesn't like it nearly as much.'

_Bloody hell. _Understanding was filtering like cold water through Lily's mind. _Oh, my Lord. _

Sirius's eyes remained on Andy, but Lily just _knew_ that he knew she was listening by now. _Bloody fecking hell. _Her face was steadily reddening and her heart was thumping like mad, and as much as she wanted to rail Sirius with an incendiary and hysterical glare, she couldn't shift her eyes from James Potter's face. He was grinning down at a piece of toast he was buttering as he listened, completely unaware of the double meaning of the anecdote.

'Anyway,' Sirius continued heavily. 'I somehow found out from – from Trelawney – that he_ could_ do Divination again if he wanted. And my dilemma, Hoppy, is that I'm torn between telling him and keeping it a secret, because he's doing so well at Muggle Studies and he's safe – I mean… I mean, guaranteed to do well in it.'

_That soulless bastard. _Lily knew her face must be scarlet by this point. Her heart was in her throat._ I__'m Divination and Daisy's Muggle Studies. _Her eyes were flickering between Sirius and James, who, finishing his toast in three bites, had hooked his feet underneath the rim of the table so that he was hanging off the bench. _Let him not realise, please, _she prayed desperately. _Bloody hell. I'm a goner._

Sirius carried sagely on. 'Divination's just too risky a bet, you know? I mean, he _loved_ it, but it didn't seem to love him back. Figuratively speaking, of course. So I don't know whether I should tell him or not.'

'Muggle Studies _is_ easier,' Peter mused. Lily choked on a mouthful of pumpkin juice and Dermot had to thump her on the back. 'How do you know so much about this bloke's timetable, anyway?'

'I look out for him,' Sirius said haughtily, piling bacon onto his plate. 'I'm his… mentor… of sorts.'

'Then God help him,' James said, hiding a grin behind a fist.

'That's awfully… conscientious,' Remus said darkly. 'But are you sure it wasn't _Charms_ that he loved?' Lily's eyes widened impossibly. _You're supposed to be helping me, you idiot!_

Sirius thought about that for a moment. 'Actually, Moony, I think it might have been,' he said slowly. 'Yes, I think you're right! _Charms,_ eh?' Though he didn't look her way, Lily knew that the grin he directed at Remus was meant just for her.

'Hang on.' James had heaved himself back onto the bench. 'You just said you spoke to Trelawney about it.' He frowned. 'I think this story's a load of rubbish.'

A few seats over, Lily began to panic in earnest. _Oh shit, oh shit, he's realised. __Please, please, please -_

'You hate kids in other years.'

_Lordy may. _She had one moment of blessed relief before Sirius's eyes slid over to her. _No, look away!_ _Don't say anything_. Her heart had made its way up her esophagus and was trying valiantly to get out of her mouth again. _No,_ no_, don't you dare_, she tried to convey with her eyes. _Don't bring me into this. Y__ou are dead. You are worse than dead, you demonic spawn of toe jam and asparagus soup _– his eyes slid away. 'Call it a metaphor. You know, one of them things that stand for something else.'

'A simile?' Dermot put in. Being so absorbed in the conversation, Lily jumped at the sound of his voice behind her. When she looked around again, her heart seized in her chest. It felt like really enthusiastic heartburn. Because Dermot's input hadn't surprised only her; now all who had been listening to Sirius's dilemma were looking their way. Lily's way. Including James.

Sirius's grin widened impossibly. It looked predatory now. 'You have it, Weasley! A simile.' Although he was speaking to Dermot, he was staring directly at Lily, who was trying to school her features into an unaffected and innocent look.

But she could see James out of the corner of her eye. _Merlin, look at him_. The hand bearing his seventh piece of toast to his mouth was hovering above his plate. Behind his glasses, sitting crookedly on his nose, his eyes were wide with surprise. A hand darted up to his hair, and, skating from Sirius's face to James's, Lily's eye caught the tiny, soft movement of his lower lip falling out of contact with the upper.

'You agree, Evans?' Sirius's voice snapped her away from that darn lip. Immediately, her face began to heat as if someone had lit a fire under the bench.

'Right – yes. A simile. Yes. I mean… yep.'

The smile on his face dimmed and his forehead creased into a frown. 'And you understand my moral dilemma, then?' The question was for her alone. _Oh, my Lord. This is the end. How is he not going to realise?_ She swallowed, eyes flicking across to James, who was watching her curiously, probably trying to figure out why Sirius was targeting her with this particular question.

She swallowed again and looked determinedly away from James. Feigning lightness, she said snottily, 'You're a moral dilemma.'

After a moment's pause – during which everyone laughed and Lily tried to give her adversary third degree burns with her eyes – Sirius turned aside, grin reappearing as if it had never been absent from his face. 'And there you have it, Hoppy. Don't listen to Evans: aren't I just the most – what did you call it, Moony? Conscientious? – aren't I just the most conscientious bloke you've ever met?'

Andy made some quip in return and the whole table went up in laughter, but Lily heard it as if at the end of a long tunnel. She was trying not to watch James, who was laughing along with the other Gryffindors, but would, every few moments readjust his position as if he, too, were trying not to look at her. She pressed both palms to her cheeks and exhaled. _That was close._ He hadn't figured it out.

Later on while pouring herself a hefty, revitalising pumpkin juice, she thought, _I don't know how he didn't figure it out, though. _Fifteen-year-old Lily was sitting, legs crossed, saying 'I told you so' in a very stern tone at the back of her mind. _You're right,_ older-Lily ceded ruefully to her younger self. _He's still a__n absolute dolt._

* * *

Have a lovely day, lovely readers!


	8. Ham and Cheese Paninis

Hello, folks! For your beauteous patience, here's a hefty un!

* * *

**Ham and Cheese Paninis**

Having always been a fairly diligent worker, Lily knew how sweet was success when it was hard-earned. And it really seemed to her as though the loss of her dignity and pride and sanity on several occasions had earnt the small – but most definitely sweet – successes that came next.

Third period transfiguration brought the first. It felt like her face had only just returned to its normal colour when she found that her seat assignment for the new topic of human transfiguration was directly in front of James Potter.

This was possibly worse than being behind him, or even – _be still my heart_ – next to him. _Oh Lordy,_ Lily thought miserably, letting her books fall onto the desk as her fellow students filed in. _This is terrible. I'm not going to hear anything McGonagall says._ She could see it: she'd spend every class stiff in her seat, staring blankly at the blackboard, knowing that all the while he could be happily deciphering her posture, hairdo and neck-moisturising habits and she couldn't do anything about it. _I'm going to fail the year_, she thought, suddenly alarmed.

The thought was so sudden and alarming that it propelled her out of her chair. To do what, she wasn't sure: ask McGonagall for a different seat? Run to the toilets and stay there for the entire class? Weep and wail at her misfortune? The last one sounded lovely and cathartic, and Lily was seriously contemplating combining options two and three when her mind just stopped.

James Potter was navigating his way towards her.

And she was just standing there. Eyes wide, mouth open, staring at him like he had already attempted human transfiguration with disastrous results. When he looked up from the desks he was scanning for his own name, and met Lily's gaze, he looked startled. _It's your face! You must look like Dumbledore just proposed to you. Control your damn facilities, Lily!_ Sure enough, obviously confused as to what had shocked her, James looked behind him to see what she was staring at. In the few moment that his face was averted, she took a deep breath and composed her features.

After ascertaining that whatever it was that had startled her was gone, James continued onward. As he neared her desk, he slowed. Now his expression was pleasantly neutral.

'Evans,' he said, and ducked his chin in that very boy-type nod. An errant hand strayed upwards to the freshly-washed mop atop his head. _Now you can tell when he's washed his hair? Great Merlin. You absolute creeper, Lily Evans._ Outside of Lily's mad head, James's eyes were flicking over the labels on the surrounding desks, searching for his own name. She could tell exactly when he found it: his eyes stopped somewhere by her right elbow, and there they stayed for a full five seconds. His face was blank. Then he stood up a little straighter. Still looking down at the name, he said lightly, 'Desk buddies, are we, Evans?'

'Not really,' Lily said, and regretted it the second the words left her mouth. _Just say yes, you idiot! Bloody hell._ Her fingers were writhing in a terribly awkward way in front of her naval. 'I mean, I think it's more of an… an adjacent… situation… type thing,' she said lamely.

'An adjacent situation type thing?' he said, eyes rising from name tag, a smile now at the corners of his mouth. Then a grimace crossed his face and he laughed – a short, sharp laugh of pained amusement. 'Dear Merlin, not _again_.'

At the truly strange pronouncement, Lily's anxious fingers stilled on the cover of her transfiguration textbook. 'What?' With fascination she watched the strange mixture of angst and comedy play on his face. 'Not again what?'

James sighed in a half-amused, half-long-suffering fashion. 'You may not have noticed this, Evans, but all of our recent interactions have ended with me questioning whatever mad thing has just come out of your mouth.'

Lily felt a blush creeping across her face. 'Yes,' she said, a tad defensively. 'And note the term "ended_"_, James– _Potter_. Potter.' She blushed at his raised eyebrows and continued. 'I'm obviously a live mine, so you'd better watch what you say.' The words were part self-mockery and part genuine warning.

'Hence the 'not again' part.' The smile on James's face had become a fully-fledged grin. 'But you're _clearly_ making it hard for me!' He said, laughing. 'What on God's green earth is a _live mine_?' He planted both hands on the desk behind him and leant back, tilting his head so that he could see her under his glasses while smiling the most rakish smile Lily had ever seen outside a Marlon Brando film.

'We covered _World War II: Artillery and Armaments_ in Muggle Studies two months ago, Potter!' She threw her hands in the air in a helpless gesture made extremely dramatic by exhilaration: _I am having a decent – albeit argumentative – conversation with James Potter._ 'I'm sure you'd know what a live mine was if you hadn't been charming Peter's nostril hair into curls while he slept.'

Behind his glasses, James's eyes crinkled with amusement. 'Cheeky little charm, that one. You're just jealous you don't have my talent for nose-hairstyling, Evans.'

'No, Potter; it's obviously your oversized brain I envy.' Despite her attempts to tamp it down – they were arguing, after all – an errant snort of laughter escaped her throat when James then pretended that his body was being crushed by the weight of his head and the oversized brain inside it.

'Potter, Evans!'

The sharp accent cut through to the two of them, standing inside a little sparkling bubble of joy and merriment – that's how Lily pictured it to look anyway – inside the dim old transfiguration classroom.

'I've never seen you so entertained in my class.' McGonagall and the rest of the class, now mostly seated and unpacking books and parchment, were watching them. McGonagall had pursed her lips into what Lily's Gran would have called – in between elderly titters at the indecency of the phrase – a 'dog's bottom'.

'Well,' the Professor amended, frowning. 'Maybe that's extending the truth a little far on your part, Mr. Potter, but that's most certainly not a joke of mine you're laughing at. If you could take your seats and turn your attention to the blackboard, I'd be _most_ grateful.'

'Right you are, Professoressa,' James said cheerfully, shooting Lily one last smile as he rather surprisingly acquiesced to McGonagall's order and ducked around to take his seat.

Lily took her own place rather gingerly a few seconds later. She was a strange mixture of fragile and numb. It was a sensation not unlike the one she would imagine a sleepwalker would feel upon being awakened, only without the bit about being scared witless. It was an altogether very positive feeling. _That was… wonderful_. Of course, it was epicly insignificant in the scheme of things, and the interaction had been predominately an argument, but there hadn't been an ounce of malice there, and to Lily Margaret Evans, it meant everything. Anyway, she was quickly accepting that arguing was… well, what they did. And she wasn't sure that she really had a problem with that. Not when it had felt so… electric.

It was as though a wispy, delicate tendril of _something _had begun to unfurl towards her from somewhere inside James Potter. It was to be met gently, she knew, and touched sparingly to prevent 'too much, too soon' from breaking it. But it was something, and something enough to keep her buzzing with restless energy for the rest of the day.

* * *

The next snippet of giddy success arrived at lunchtime in the rather strange form of Daisy Abbott. And, to be honest, while it started off a giddy success, it left Lily somewhat confused.

She was chatting with Mary, Aldora Finch and Francis Doggart, two seventh years, over a large ham and cheese panini (the Hogwarts house elves were slowly branching out from the standard British fare students had enjoyed for the last few hundred years) when she heard a sound that made her pancreas begin to shrivel: A certain Hufflepuff's soft, sweet voice commenting gently – Lily reckoned that the witch was physically incapable of complaining – on the fact that James and Daisy hadn't been able to sit together at lunch for almost a week.

_Boo-bloody-hoo,_ Lily thought sourly, chomping savagely on her panini and massaging her pancreas, as whatever poor confused Aldora was saying fell suddenly upon deaf ears. Staring darkly at the salt shaker, she trained her ears on the conversation approximately – definitely; she had counted – eight people to her left.

'There's no room left on the bench, Dais,' James was saying in a sorry sort of voice. 'I can get Frank and Marlon to shove over – hey, Frank–'

'No, no – it's fine!' Daisy said hastily. 'Don't worry, Frank.' Ever the perfectly considerate specimen of feminine long-suffering, she silenced James's repeated desire to uproot a goodly portion of the table, and made a suggestion that caused Lily's spine to stiffen. 'There's space over there next to Lily. We could move there?' The question was sweet and hesitant and apologetic and Lily could almost hear the addendum 'if it's not too much trouble…' tacked on the end.

In the next few seconds, as Sirius, a little further along the table, commented wryly that 'He's your boyfriend, Lady Abbott – it's well within your rights to force him to move wherever you want him,' Lily frantically tried to make the contents of her book bag stretch across the excess bench beside her.

To her right, Marlene was saying 'Forgive her sins,' in an apologetic tone to Aldora and Francis, in answer to Lily's suddenly antisocial and erratic behaviour. 'She's in hard-core fancy-town at the moment and it's hitting her like a mild form of epilepsy: she has these sort of conscious black-outs… very fascinating...'

When in her periphery she saw a certain black-haired boy heft himself from his seat, led by a blonde-haired witch, Lily abandoned her book bag, swung around, and said, 'yes, right,' very loudly in response to whatever Francis was saying. Francis was startled, as she had been in the middle of a sentence, but Lily was determined to look preoccupied, and widened her eyes and nodded in a _go on_ type fashion.

'Well – er –' poor Francis said, 'yes, I was saying –'

'Hi, Lily!'

Lily made a show of disengaging herself from what hopefully appeared to be a very gripping conversation, and turned around. Marlene told her later that she looked like one of the grinning clowns she had once seen at a Muggle circus. The aim was to throw balls into their gaping mouths for prizes, but Marlene said she had been too scared to go near them.

'Daisy! Hi!'

_She's so pretty_, Lily thought miserably, trying to keep the wide smile on her face. Daisy smiled right back in what was probably a much more natural, friendly way. 'Is there anyone sitting there?' Her eyes took in the array of books and quills spread out evenly across the bench. 'Oh, sorry, are you working? We'll find some other –'

'No, no,' Lily said quickly, feeling suddenly guilty. _Why does the trampy Potter-stealing witch always have to be so nice about everything?_ 'I – er – I was just cleaning out my bag. Lunch is the best time for it, I do believe.'

Behind Daisy, James was grinning. 'I don't know; I personally find breakfast the best time for a spot of tidying,' he said.

Heart quickening with excitement, Lily replied 'You're one of _them_, are you?' in mock-disbelief. Next to her, Marlene's jaw dropped. Ignoring her, Lily carried on. 'Disgusting. I should have known.'

'Oh, yes,' he said, nodding gravely. 'Breakfast vittles are very inspiring. They just make me want to get organised. It's the bacon, I think.'

'What rot are you two talking?' Dorcas, who had just sat down next to Aldora, reached over Lily for the pumpkin juice. Marlene was looking between James and Lily as if they were doing something far more inappropriate than engaging in light-hearted lunch-type conversation. Daisy was still smiling, but in a confused kind of way, looking between James and Lily as if she thought she _ought_ to know what they were talking about, but had gotten lost somewhere along the way.

A little prickle of guilt latched onto Lily. _It's alright,_ she suddenly wanted to tell her, _I'm not really sure what we're talking about either. _The feeling was doing battle with another surge of giddiness inside Lily's head: James Potter was standing not a metre away, laughing with her and not Daisy. A goodly portion of her was dancing a violent conga of celebration, but the prickle of guilt she had trodden on while dancing was impairing mobility. Lily paused the dance and sat down to pick the prickle out, but she had recently cut her nails and the darn thing was eluding removal.

After a moment, gesturing to the now-cleared bench, Daisy said rather awkwardly, 'So… do you mind, then?'

_Solution: must get me some tweezers._

* * *

Marlene hijacked Lily's journey to Herbology that afternoon.

'Hey, you!'

Lily pretended not to hear, which she acknowledged from the outset was a useless endeavour and a waste of time.

'Hey, Evans! Don't ignore me, you sad idiot.'

Slowly, she turned, surveying Marlene as she struggled down the boggy hillside toward Greenhouse four, in front of which the addressed was standing. She waited until Marlene was next to her before saying, 'Alright, get it over with.'

'Get what over with?' Marlene frowned. 'You've got no idea what I'm going to say.'

'Oh, you're going to _say_ something?' Lily said, feigning surprise. 'I that case, I've got no idea. I thought you were going to _attack_ me in your usual fashion.'

Marlene coughed delicately. 'For the sake of cutting to the quick of the matter and getting to class on time, I'll ignore that blatantly insulting assumption. What I want to know–'

'Hey!' Lily started hotly, 'stop turning my journey to hard-core fancy-town – thank you for telling Aldora and Francis about that, by the way – into your personal quest for knowledge!' She snorted. '"What I want to know," my arse.'

Marlene sighed. 'All right. I'm sorry.'

Lily nodded, slightly mollified.

'What I want to know, _please_-' the brunette gave her friend a look that said clearly that that was as good as she was getting '-is what in _Merlin's name_ happened at lunch time.'

It was Lily's turn to sigh. She stared disconsolately at a miserable tuft of weedy grass poking through the mesh mat on the doorstep of the greenhouse. 'Which part exactly?' She nudged the grass with the tip of her shoe. 'I thought the whole thing was… rather positive.'

'_Yes_,' Marlene said, huffing the word as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 'That's my issue. He said something that normally you'd find inflammatory – obviously it wouldn't be classed as inflammatory for any other normal human being–' Lily rolled her eyes '- and your response was practically jocular. You responded to James Potter with _jocularity_.'

Lily didn't say anything. Marlene went on. 'And it looked quite natural! I watched the whole time and I don't think I saw you once battle the harpy within! You didn't look like you were repressing the urge to bite him once. That was a genuine, if mad–' Marlene frowned '-conversation.' She pretended to choke back tears for a moment, but then said quite seriously, 'I think you might have grown up a bit, Lil. '

Lily was surprised. She was quiet for a few seconds. Then she asked tentatively, 'what does that mean?' She picked at a bit of pilling on her jumper. 'In the context of… well… the whole business?'

Marlene exhaled, hands on hips. 'I don't know. Mayhap that I think it means you've got a clear shot of the target. Nearly.' She frowned. 'There is the slight problem of-'

'Daisy.' Lily exhaled loudly. 'Yes.' There was a desolate silence between the girls. Lily stared up at the castle. Marlene stared at Lily.

At this point Professor Wendover arrived, gardening shears in hand, spouting vitriol at a few nameless junkies who had broken into Greenhouse one and broken the heads off his delirium daisies. The rest of the class, who had arrived in dribs and drabs as Marlene and Daisy were speaking, trailed in behind him. The two witches hung behind. Marlene had Defence Against the Dark Arts and Professor Sturridge ran an oppressively tight ship, but she was making no move to move along.

Both girls were still and quiet for what seemed an age.

'Damn it.'

Lily broke the silence. She leant against the greenhouse. It was as if the prickle of guilt had become infected. During Charms, the wound had begun to fester, and by the time she had set off for Herbology the infection had gotten into the bloodstream. She kept seeing Daisy's confused, hesitant face as her boyfriend and his sworn enemy got on famously and she couldn't seem to catch onto the jokes.

'If only she was a total bitch, eh?' Marlene said in quiet sympathy. Lily nodded mutely. Somehow, Marlene understood.

'But you haven't actually done anything, have you?' the witch said in a bolstering manner. 'You've got nothing to be guilty for, other than a few murderous thoughts and you can't really help that, because you're mentally unstable.'

'Yeah,' Lily admitted, 'but the ultimate plan is to have her deposed.' She groaned and closed her eyes. 'She's just so _nice._'

She gripped _the Encyclopedia of Remedial Herbs_ to her chest. 'I hadn't thought about it before today,' she said slowly, 'but I don't think – I don't think I could fully _be_ with James after I'd ruined his last relationship. That's not… I wouldn't…' She sighed in frustration, letting the sentence fall. Daisy's face appeared in her mind again; sweet and trusting. 'How could I be really happy if I really hurt someone in order to get at him?'

There was more silence. Both Marlene and Lily needed to absorb what had just been said. After a moment, Marlene put her hand on Lily's arm in a surprisingly comforting gesture.

'It's real shitty having morals, isn't it?'

Lily gave a mournful snort of laughter. After a moment, her friend said quietly, 'What are you going to do, then?'

The redhead squinted up at the sun for a few seconds. Closing her eyes, she focused on the brilliant points of light that hung suspended in the darkness under her eyelids. 'I have no idea.'

* * *

Phew.. that was intense. What's Lily gonna do? :O


	9. Hopeful Boats

Ch-ch-chapter n-n-nine! Poor Lily; I don't envy her, trying to sort out that mad head of hers.

* * *

**Hopeful Boats**

or

**Silly Buggers**

It was quite the about-turn. That night, Lily gathered Emmeline and Marlene – the only two Gryffindor girls to be had at nine thirty on a Friday due to lack of snog-buddies – into the confines of her four-poster, quite by force. It was entirely reasonable, she said in a placating way to a hissing Emmeline that Lily should want to nut out her troubles with two of her bosom-dearest. Anyway, it wasn't her fault that the silly bugger had gotten it into her head that catching up on sleep was a good thing to do at this time of night.

'We could be anyone, Lily,' Marlene said bluntly. 'At this point you'd happily tell Peeves your troubles.'

And to some degree this was true. The bosom-dearest idea quickly degenerated into Lily rambling on about what precisely it was she _couldn't _do to reestablish herself as a contender for James Potter's hand, and what_ would_ be acceptable. Marlene and Emmeline could only sit there and look sympathetic – well, Marlene looked frankly irritated and Emmeline was pretending to look sympathetic and quickly failing.

'And so onto the next issue: clothing. I want to win him with my soul and wit, not my womanly wiles, so anything provocative is not an option.'

In the nanoseconds where Lily paused to draw breath, Marlene got in pointedly, 'You generally dress in a nun's weekend wear.'

The redhead took a moment to consider whether she found that hurtful or not, but decided there was probably some truth in it, and so pushed on with her contention. 'Well, yes, but I'm not sure… my lavender blouse, for ex–'

'Lavender is possibly the most un-provocative colour that _anyone_ could wear,' Emmeline said, groaning. 'It _screams_ "nursing home", Lily!'

Shot down, and suddenly realising that her bosom-dearest might actually have something constructive to say on the subject, Lily opened the board to them. 'Alright,' she said levelly, 'what do you think I should do, then?'

Marlene perked up quite suddenly. She grinned. 'Excellent. Em, how about you do the tactful stuff and then I can get down to what you actually mean?'

Lily frowned and opened her mouth to object, but Emmeline nodded. 'That sounds reasonable. Okay, Lil.' She shifted into a more comfortable position. She had at some point rolled over to occupy two thirds of the bed and now it was a least three quarters. Folding her hands over her chest, she stared up at the canopy of Lily's four-poster in contemplation.

'This is how I see it. You want James to have and to hold, yes? But you've realised – and I really admire this, by the way–' Emmeline's tone was so genuine here that Lily thought for the first time that it was possible that she was doing something right '-that it'll be a hollow victory if your relationship is born from the smouldering ashes of a recently deceased one –'

'Must you always speak in prose?' Marlene interjected, nose wrinkled with disgust.

'It _is_ a bit distracting,' Lily admitted.

Emmeline frowned. 'Alright, plebeians, in more era-appropriate terms, then.' She thought for a second. 'Summated for you scummy birds: if Lily biffs Daisy and then boffs James she'll feel like a real wanker.'

'Nicely done,' Lily said in surprise.

'How crass,' Marlene said disdainfully.

'Thank you.' Emmeline inclined her head regally. 'So, my thoughts are, Lil, go on as you were.'

At both Lily and Marlene's incredulous looks, she elaborated. 'Be his friend, but not exclusively. Talk to Daisy as well. Get to know his mates. I'm not sure you're physically capable of flirting, but you and James, already-' she shook her head and exhaled as if she couldn't quite compute what had happened '-you already talk as if you're the only ones around. Go on as you were, but be careful: don't be a threat, just _be there_. Become part of his life again.'

For once all four girls – Dorcas was clued into what had transpired in the four-poster when she came back from her "study session" with Dominic Fletchey ten minutes later – were in accordance about something. Emmeline's advice was unanimously voted sound and it was recommended that Lily act upon it. Immediately. In fact, so fired up were the zealots that when Dorcas mentioned that James and 'the lads' were in the common room, Lily was all but pushed into the corridor.

'Fanatics, all of you,' she wailed, gripping either side of the doorframe as Emmeline tickled her ribs and Marlene, with her head embedded in Lily's stomach, tried to violently shove her out. 'I will not move,' she got out through gritted teeth. Dorcas, who was shedding her cloak and bag next to her bed, said in her wise, Dorcas-y way, 'Leave her alone, you twits. Give the situation time to breathe, I say.'

Of course Marlene and Emmeline listened to Dorcas, not Lily, and soon left her alone. After she had recovered from the attack and had ascertained that Emmeline and Marlene's attentions were occupied elsewhere, she settled next to Dorcas on her bed.

'So, Dom Fletchey, eh?' Lily said, poking her sober friend in the side. The other witch rubbed at the prodded spot in an absent way. 'Nope,' she said quietly. 'Despite all the quotation marks you guys use, they're actually just study sessions.'

After a moment Lily said, 'But you want the quotation marks.'

Dorcas's sigh was almost inaudible; the most delicate, sad little exhale of air Lily had ever heard. She felt guilty for what felt like the twentieth time that day: she'd been so absorbed in her own agonies that she'd forgotten about things like Dorcas's quiet and steady enchantment with Dominic Fletchey.

'What's it been, two years now?'

A little smile appeared on Dorcas's face. 'And he hasn't noticed. I'm sure of it –' she said in response to Lily's incredulous look. Surely he'd have heard about it from someone, somewhere. 'He wouldn't talk endlessly about Olivia if he knew. He's too nice for that.'

'Finch? He likes Olivia Finch?'

'Yep,' Dorcas said, picking at the cuff of her blouse. 'Does he ever. And I don't blame him, the way he makes her out to be.'

'Huh,' said Lily, planting her hands firmly on either side of her legs and pulling her shoulders up to her ears. She rocked back and forth. 'This should be a boat, your bed. Cause we're in the same one!' She waggled her eyebrows and guffawed loudly.

Dorcas graced the terrible joke with a smile, but then said 'nah,' in the quietest little voice. Her eyes were fixed on her knees. 'Yours is a hopeful boat, Evans. Mine's a sure sinker.'

* * *

Over the next few weeks Lily felt like she had at least five separate brains. There was Dorcas to think about – getting Dominic Fletchey to notice her had become an overnight priority much to the girl's distress – not to mention schoolwork, prefect duties and what had evolved from Operation Chase James Potter into the James/Daisy/Lily Debacle. Also, Dumbledore's hundred and seventh was fast approaching and decorating took up most of Lily's free time. The theme chosen was awe-inspiringly redundant: 'Magic and Mayhem'. Frida Clearwater had suggested it, and Phillip MacMillan in his sheep-like way had paid off a few fifth year Slytherins to support the stupid theme. Naturally, Frida had loved him thereon, much to poor Arj Patil's distress.

On a Tuesday evening in early April Lily was sitting atop a suspicious-looking bit of scaffolding Peter had produced from a broom cupboard somewhere. Remus had called ill – _he does look a little pale and pinched,_ Lily admitted – and so she had had to suck it up and climb the damn shaky scaffold while he passed her up the decorations. He was carrying the thing from pillar to pillar though, which made up for it a little.

'I just don't know what to do,' Lily was saying as she industriously charmed one of Filibuster's Rebooting Rockets to a pillar. 'Dorcas has liked him for _so_ long. And she's just the most – the most –' She frowned as the sticking charm wore off after a few seconds. She had a feeling that fireworks weren't meant to be glued down, but she had her specific instructions. The fireworks were supposed to go off every time someone walked past the pillar. 'Ah. Got it. Anyway, she's one of the best people I know and Olivia Finch has the biggest forehead I've ever seen on a human being.'

Down below, Remus gave the scaffold a little shake, which caused Lily to shriek and grab ahold of the pillar. 'Maybe you should let it alone,' he suggested mildly after the stream of expletives had died down to a trickle. Lily scoffed, both arms still wrapped around the cool granite. 'You're asking me to deny my very nature. What would Nietzsche say?'

'I'm not sure,' Remus said. 'Quite possibly he'd agree with me in this situation.'

'Alright then, Mister Let-it-alone. What do you think Dorcas should do?'

'I think she should just be there for him.' The words were so startlingly similar to what Emmeline had said to Lily a few weeks ago that Lily dropped her wand. It fell through the planks of the scaffold and clattered to the floor. Retrieving it and levitating it back up to her, Remus continued unperturbed. 'It might be hard, but you can't force anyone to like you. You can flirt, and maybe they'll come along more quickly, but if you want the genuine thing – the thing that's not just – just attraction – you've got to wait.'

'Right.' Lily's brain was ticking over. 'You read that out of a self-help novel.' She finished with the firework and climbed slowly down the side of the scaffold. Remus lifted one side of the rickety structure onto its wheels and began to pull it along behind him. His fellow prefect was thinking hard. She followed him slowly down the corridor. It was only once he had set up the scaffold at the next location and she had hesitantly scaled it that she reopened the subject.

'So what about Olivia, then? What is Dorcas supposed to do about Olivia?'

Remus didn't reply for a moment. Lily looked down to see what had occupied his attention, but he was staring up at her in a very penetrating way. _Oh dear._ His eyes were narrowed perceptively.

'Might this information aid you two-fold?'

'You sound like Em,' Lily said mournfully, avoiding the question. 'You both talk like Byron. But yes,' she said with bashful honesty, feeling a blush start up on her cheeks when Remus gave her a significant look. She turned back to the pillar and began again the fiddly process of charming the fireworks into position. 'It might help more than one person.'

* * *

_Remus is bloody wise,_ Lily thought as she traipsed down to dinner later that evening. _He's like one of them ancient Greek moon oracles. _What had he said? It'd been much the same as what Emmeline had been saying over the last few weeks, but he'd put it in such a… _Remus-y _way.

'I just think,' he had said simply, 'that you have to put yourself in Daisy's shoes. How would it feel to be in her place?'

Lily had scowled down at him. 'Are you trying to help me, Remus? I've already got guilt compounding fortnightly at fifteen percent interest in the bank account of my mind.'

Remus blinked. She had waved a dismissive hand. 'My dad's an accountant. Don't worry.'

They moved along to the next pillar. Lily scrambled up the scaffold and reached down for the fireworks. 'You're not going to like this,' Remus had said, passing her up another Rebooting Rocket. 'But I think you've just got to let the relationship run its course.'

Eye nearly bugging out of her head, Lily had wailed 'but she's perfect!' so loudly and fervidly that the Rocket actually began sparking in her hand and she nearly fell to her death. 'The course of that relationship will be eternal. Till death do them part,' she said in utter misery once she had righted herself.

Remus didn't say anything else, but there was a little look in his eye that said _trust me, Lily Evans, I know things_.

So, she was taking his advice. His and Emmeline's. _And my own_, she thought, frowning. _I was the first one to think about it. I've got to start trusting me,_ she thought, straightening her back and raising her chin a little_. I have damn good ideas._

* * *

Woohoo! I can promise you some serious James action next chapter. And there'll be some Daisy in there as well... Cheeky, cheeky! Anyway, please drop me a review!


	10. Dressing Gowns & Dinner Jackets, part 1

Alrighty, folks! Chapter ten was behemoth of a beast, so it's been broken into two parts. I'll post the next part within the week.

* * *

**Dressing Gowns and Dinner Jackets, part one**

**or**

**A Study of the Effects of Jazz and Dim Lighting Upon Teenagers**

The day of Albus Dumbledore's hundredth and seventh birthday dawned bright and chilly.

'I think Spring sprang overnight,' Mary said, hooking her arm through Lily's on their way down to breakfast. 'Sniff that fresh, Spring-y air, Lil. Sniff it, come on, sniff – _ack _–'

They missed breakfast. Lily didn't mind, though: she thought it was entirely worth watching Mary struggle to snort an entire Monarch butterfly through her nasal tract. There was nothing the redhead could do but stand out of the way as her friend stumbled around the corridor yelling, 'it's fluttering its bloody – ah, oh, Jesus, now it's got its little legs – tickling – oh Merlin, ah ah ah, oh Lordy – _get it out_!'

After a few minutes of entertainment, Lily had the brilliant idea of using a Summoning Charm. A quick, '_accio _butterfly,' in between snorts of laughter, and the insect came zooming out of Mary's nose and flapped away, probably to find some sort of bug-counsellor to deal with its newfound issues. It was worth the amusement, but Lily and Mary headed off to first period Potions with empty stomachs.

In celebration of the Headmaster's birthday it was only a half-day, which gave students time to prepare for the ball later that evening. It was a lovely idea, Lily thought, but the prospect of finishing classes _after_ lunch meant that absolutely no one paid any attention to anything the professors said _before _lunch.

Halfway through Potions, as Slughorn was droning on about the dangers versus benefits of using Erumpent horn shavings in potion-making and every other student was either asleep or discussing their robes for the ball, Lily received a note to the back of the head. Her heart beat a little quicker when, after a moment, she began to un-scrunch the little piece of parchment. There was one person in particular who was notorious in the art of note sending… but it was just from Mary.

_Emergency pilfering of the emergency hamper before Muggle Studies. Circle yes or no._

At just that moment, Lily's stomach growled. She circled 'yes' and scrawled a short sentence beneath Mary's, grinning to herself. Quickly checking that Slughorn had his back to the class, still mumbling away about Erumpents and their horns, she swivelled to return the note.

But Lily had forgotten – _how _had she forgotten? – that Mary's desk buddy was none other than James Potter. The beautiful boy had his head in the crook of his elbow, and was drawing pictures of pie on his textbook. Whenever he yawned, Mary would vanish the pies and James, obviously half-asleep, would look with vague surprise at his quill, give it a shake and start all over again.

Making sure Slughorn still had his front toward the blackboard, Lily muttered '_depulso_,' and watched with glee as the little wad of parchment shot straight into James's yawning mouth. His eyes popped open with sudden alertness and with a great, hacking cough that surprisingly failed to rouse the attention of every drowsy student in the class, the note was propelled with some force onto the desk in front of him.

Mary calmly fished the parchment out of the pool of spit and James looked up at Lily with a comical expression of shock on his face. His eyes moved from the note in Mary's hands, covered with Lily's embarrassingly recognisable handwriting, back to Lily. _That was _you_?_ his raised eyebrows asked. Slowly, a grin spread across his face, and two thumbs were raised in a _good job, Evans! _type of way. Next to him Mary had gone pink and was shaking her head in amused embarrassment. James peered down at the note and frowned.

_I could really eat a chocolate __butterfly__ frog right now_, Lily's note read. Mary was turning a lovely shade of magenta.

'Evans,' he whispered at Lily, looking across at Mary, who was clutching her nose. 'What's happened? Butterfly?' Lily shot him a quizzical look, trying to look like she didn't know what he was referring to. Annoyed, he flapped his arms in such an enthusiastic way that in trying to refrain from laughing, she snorted loudly. 'But-ter-fly,' he said, the words half-mouthed, half-whispered.

Lily was about to mime the butterfly-Mary's nose scenario back to him when she saw Daisy out of the corner of her eye. She was sitting a row behind James and had slowly raised her head off her arms, eyes flickering between James and Lily.

James must have seen Lily's expression falter, because he looked around to see what had distracted her. When he saw Daisy, he was suddenly still, his face averted from Lily's for a good ten seconds. Then he turned around again, face blank. He didn't look back at Lily.

A cold feeling twined about her insides. Mary, her mouth dropped open in a little 'o' of astonishment, was dividing her shocked stare between Lily and James, who was now drawing another pie on his textbook, forehead furrowed in intense concentration. Slowly, Lily turned around. She stared at Slughorn's bald patch for the remainder of the period, and when the bell rang, ran from the room.

* * *

And so Mary found out.

She caught up with Lily on the sixth floor staircase, threw herself onto the bottom step as it began to take off and landed at Lily's feet, panting. It took her a few moments to recover before she looked up, wide-eyed, at her friend.

'What just happened?'

Lily didn't know what to say, so she didn't.

'I don't understand what happened, Lil,' Mary said, heaving herself into a standing position using Lily's jumper. She settled herself and took a step back so that she could take in the redhead's face. Lily wondered what she looked like at the moment. She didn't even know how she felt.

'When he saw Daisy – your face –_ his_ face…' Mary trailed off. Her eyes flickered across Lily's face now. 'You looked so… so shocked… and _upset_. Is something… happening? Between you two?'

A moment passed. Lily couldn't help but smile a little bit at the look on Mary's face, even though her gut was twisting unnaturally. Mary's eyes widened further. 'You fancy him. You fancy James Potter.' She clapped her hands over her mouth and stared at Lily.

Lily didn't feel like she really needed to confirm the statement. Mary could see. Slowly, the witch's hands fell from her mouth. 'But… Daisy.'

Lily nodded. They stepped off the staircase together and stood at the mouth of the seventh floor corridor.

'But Daisy.'

* * *

Lunch was a light fare in saving for the big feast, but Lily and Mary ate ravenously. The emergency hamper was nearly cleared out from the time Lily had spent nearly thirty-six consecutive hours alone in dormitory and all they'd had to get them through Herbology and Muggle Studies respectively was a small block of suspiciously old Honeydukes' cherry chocolate and seven Every Flavour Beans. Lily won the tussle and got four beans to Mary's three, but hers ended up being porridge, leather, treacle and grass-flavoured anyway.

Mary made short work of letting Marlene, Dorcas and Emmeline know that she was in on the secret – 'Welcome, Mary, to the Save Lily Evans From Herself Club,' Marlene said somberly – and regaled them with the happenings of Potions.

Aside from Emmeline who was quickly bringing Mary up to speed with recent Plan Be-His-Friend, everyone was silent after Mary described the look on James's face.

'This be-his-friend lark isn't going to work,' Marlene said bluntly.

Lily tried to swallow. A bite of egg salad sandwich seemed to be stuck in her throat.

Dorcas sighed. 'Not with Daisy on the scene. Your relationship, no matter how… well, it's always going to be charged, Lil. It's always going to be seen as threatening for someone in Daisy's position.'

Lily coughed and the bit of sandwich slid sickly down her throat. Everything seemed a bit grey around the edges. Her friends' chatter was too loud and too bright, despite the subject matter, and really… _I think I'd like to sleep._

But then came what the others heralded as a breakthrough. 'Why don't you just be straight with him?' Mary asked. 'It sounds like there's a whole heap of unspoken stuff between you two. I think you should just let him know where you stand.'

There was a pause, which was then followed by a gradual build in enthusiasm for the idea. Marlene, Dorcas and Emmeline all began to hmmm and mmm with growing energy.

'You do have your uses, Mary, and not just for your extensive range of cosmetics. We should have recruited you to the team ages ago,' Marlene said, looking at the brunette in surprise.

Mary nodded smugly. 'Thank you very much.'

'Lily?'

Lily looked up from the remains of her sandwich. 'Yes?'

All four girls were watching her with frighteningly similar expressions of this-is-business.

Dorcas leant forward and, elbows planted firmly on the table, chin on fists. 'Do you submit to our superior scheming?' Feeling a little as if she were signing her own death-notice, but acknowledging that in her less-than-motivated state she'd probably only come up with another terrible plan for salvaging the situation, Lily nodded.

'Alright then. Here's the plan.'

* * *

'Am I being stupid?' Lily asked quietly when it was only Marlene and her left at the table. The others had gone to begin getting ready for the ball and Marlene had stayed behind (or was coerced, depending on who told the story) to help Lily finish decorating the hall with the other prefects. 'Am I overreacting?'

Marlene had her tongue between her teeth as she levitated a garish purple and silver garland of Frida Davies's choosing into position underneath a window on the west wall. 'Why does it always fall to darling Marlene to do the reassuring? We all know I'm terrible at it.'

'Yes, but you won't feed me rubbish, feel-good answers,' Lily said, running her fingers over the top of her clipboard.

'And that's all of a sudden a good thing?' Marlene asked, a smile curling her mouth upwards. 'You know how much crap I've gotten over the –'

'Alright, yes, yes,' Lily said hastily, passing Marlene a silver bauble. 'I just need you to tell me whether or not this is all just dramatic nonsense and I should leave it alone.'

Marlene didn't blink. 'I think that you've never taken a risk in your life and that it's about time you fought for something that might possibly have always belonged to you.'

* * *

Naturally, the last few hours leading up to the ball were chaos. All the decorations on the West side of the Hall fell down fifteen minutes after Marlene put them up – 'You should have told me to use a Temporary Sticking Charm, not a Quick-Stick Charm. I think that shows very poor employer/employee communication.' – and down in the kitchen, hysterical House Elves had to be reassured that everything would be to the taste of 'kind and beauteous Professor Dumbledore, sir'. Hagrid decided to help move the house tables out of the Great Hall to create the dance floor, and dropped a foot on the skinny tail of Mrs. Norris, who had to be taken to the Hospital Wing for an emergency amputation by an extremely distressed Argus Filch. Suffice to say, Lily had no desire to actually attend the ball by the time everything was ready, a scant ten minutes before the event was due to begin.

Behind the double doors of the Great Hall, students were thronging in their finery, eager to get the best seats and excited for the night to start. Lily sighed, one hand on a great doorknob. It had taken her and Stella Brightley the last hour to re-charm all the decorations into their correct places. _Best go and get my gear on, then_, she thought tiredly.

From behind her, a gloomy voice said 'Party time.'

Normally neat Remus, shoulders now slouched and hands shoved deep in pockets, had his shirt untucked and a streak of purple glitter across his chin.

'I see you share my glee at the thought,' Lily said, gesturing that he had a little something on his face.

Scrubbing at his chin with one hand, Remus turned and surveyed the Hall. 'It looks great, though.'

Great was a gross understatement. While Frida Davies had had monopoly on the theme, 'Magic and Mayhem' had not entirely ruled out the possibility of tastefulness. The huge space was low-lit and ambient: not a quarter of the candles it usually took to light the Great Hall were grouped in small clusters above the hundred or so little tables that ringed the dance floor. Professor Flitwick had charmed into being a huge glossy circle of hardwood in the centre of the stone-carpeted Hall for the dance floor, and several metres above it, five hundred-some candles glowed from deep purple to palest mauve. The tables were covered by stiff white tablecloths and had a purple centerpiece; these, Lily admitted, were tacky, _but what else would one expect with Arabella Scotts on table decorations?_ Theteachers' table was covered in a golden tablecloth and a purple-cushioned throne had replaced Dumbledore's usual high-backed chair.

Here and there, a few prefects were skittering about, tweaking table arrangements and charming back into place an errant candle. Anticipation was thick in the air and the steadily growing hum of excited conversation behind the double doors had the place humming with energy before the ball had even begun.

'It looks great,' Lily seconded. She turned to look dubiously at the doors. 'I just don't think I have the energy to battle through the party troops.'

Remus was already walking away, calling over his shoulder, 'Follow me, then.'

He led her through a tiny, stone-coloured door behind the teachers' table that Lily had no idea existed and down several little-used corridors only a few brightly clad and eager revellers were traversing this close to the commencement of the ball.

Once on the seventh floor – quiet now, as most Gryffindors were downstairs, crowding the Entrance Hall – Lily remembered something.

'Remus.' In the chaos of the last few hours she had forgotten her task. The heaviness she had felt at lunchtime hit her again like the Hogwarts Express. 'I've got to do something tonight. I've – I've got to speak to James.'

Remus shot her a sharp look. His open, tired expression hardened instantaneously. 'Alone, I presume.'

Lily nodded. Remus muttered the password and the Fat Lady swung inward. They both climbed into the common room. Clearly not wanting to look too eager to get to the ball, several older students were still hanging around the fire clad in dress-robes.

Lily and Remus, the latter now looking quite conflicted, stopped at the foot of the girls' staircase. A hand to his forehead, Remus began, haltingly, 'this isn't – no, you wouldn't. Sorry.'

'Did you just answer your own question and then apologise for it?' Lily asked, giving a tense little laugh. 'What were you going to ask?'

He took a great breath and looked at her with a weighty expression. 'I was wondering if this is going to be like in the films – yes, I've seen films – where you're all done up-' he gestured absently at her clothing '-and there's low-lighting and atmosphere and romance and you – you-'

'Use my womanly wiles to lure him away from the sainted Daisy Abbott?' Anxious though she was, the idea made Lily snort with laughter. 'Not likely. His virtue is no danger from me this evening.'

Remus watched her carefully for a few more moments. Finally her twitching fingers and rolled-in shoulders must have convinced him that Lily Evans, Seductress, would not be making an appearance tonight, and he sighed. 'I'll let him know.'

'No,' said Lily quickly, fingers leaping to the hem of her jumper with nerves. 'I don't think that–'

With both hands, Remus pushed Lily's arms down by her sides, smiling. 'Get ready and enjoy the ball. You'll have your talk with James.'

* * *

The ball was in full swing by the time Lily walked into the Entrance Hall. The space had come alive with buzzing students. A five-piece band was playing a light, jazzy piece that suited the mood of the conversation and teenagers who were hyperaware of each other had made the atmosphere electric. As of yet there was no dancing, but almost every table was occupied and students stood talking at various points in the Hall. Dumbledore was in his throne, dressed in pale gold robes, smiling jovially down the Hall. It was, simply put, magical. The light was soft and everyone looked different. Certainly, Lily knew, everyone _felt_ different: _something about a dress makes you feel special, _she thought, swirling her own about her feet as she stood in the doorway. The softness of the material did something to soothe her gnawing anxiety. She felt… strangely confident.

The same change could be seen everywhere: pressed into the soft shadows next to the doorway a girl in a soft blue dress was laughing in the low, languid way that only jazz and dim lighting could prompt; the boy she was talking to had squared his shoulders and was standing taller than he usually did. '"Magic and Mayhem", though?' Lily heard the girl saying in a teasing way to the boy. 'It's magical, alright, but where's the mayhem?' Lily refrained from telling the girl to be patient; Frida's theme actually had quite the fantastic culmination, one that would answer the question well enough.

Her eyes suddenly alighted on Alice and Mary standing halfway down the west side of the hall, waving to get her attention. Weaving around a group of third year girls dressed in varying shades of ultramarine, she made her way towards her two friends. The table they had claimed was right on the edge of the dance floor, halfway between the double doors and the teachers' table. Alice was wearing a dress of soft champagne and Mary's dress was so dark that Lily couldn't tell what colour it was in the shadows. Alice had speared her up-do with her wand; Mary's was sticking out of a finicky little purse. Gasps of admiration were exchanged and each girl did a little on-the-spot dance of excitement. Emmeline joined the group moments later, and the whole process began again.

'Look over there,' Emmeline said quietly after everyone had cooed over each other's robes for long enough. She was pointing to a table across the dance floor, just to the right of the teachers' table. 'Dorky and Dominic Fletchey.'

Sure enough, standing next to the table was Dorcas and her burly Ravenclaw friend. Hands clasped in front of her chest, Lily squinted hard, trying to make out their facial expressions across the hazy purple dance floor. Dominic was speaking fast, his face earnest and his arms moving expressively. Dorcas was listening, a blank expression on her face; her arms wrapped around herself.

'Poor Dorky. Why does she do it to herself?' Alice muttered. All four girls were watching the exchange intently. It looked dismal. 'Did you just come from there?' Lily asked Emmeline.

'No,' Emmeline said, her downturned mouth morphing suddenly into a coy smile. 'I've been over there with Adam Prescott.' The Hufflepuff was sitting with his friends two tables away. Her smile grew wider as Adam noticed her watching him and waved his fingers.

'Adam Prescott,' Lily repeated blankly. 'What, do you fancy him?'

'Emmeline Peterson!' Alice crowed, eyebrows moving athletically. Emmeline grinned back. The soft pink of her dress made her blonde hair look particularly gold and brought out the blue in her eyes, which were shining with excitement. 'He said that my dress reminded me of his sister's pygmy puff. I have decided to take it as a compliment.'

Lily surveyed the boy. _He has a nice enough face_, she thought, _but I'm pretty sure he's entirely stupid. _As they watched, he huffed into a dessertspoon and tried to stick it to his nose.

'What about Vance?' Mary asked, frowning, as Emmeline and Alice held hands and squealed in each other's faces. 'I thought you held the ole torch for him.'

Emmeline face fell into a frown. She turned away from the table of laughing boys. She waved the comment away. 'No, Mary. Vance is… fine. But Adam, well…' Emmeline trailed off, shrugging her shoulders with a grin.

Lily looked over again at the group of boys. Emmeline had liked Friedrich Vance on and off for years but he'd never noticed her, which was a pity because he was one of the nicest boys Lily knew. _Good on Emmeline for seeing the impossibility of the lark and moving on. Wish I knew how to do that…_

'Whew, hasn't little Pettigrew scrubbed up!'

Lily thought it was sad how fast her head whipped around to where Mary was pointing. Where Peter was, there too would be her treasure. _That's not how the saying goes,_ she thought vaguely. She didn't really get more than a cursory glance at Peter in the end, though. Instead, she spent the time staring across the dance floor at James Potter.

To be entirely honest, there were very few people who weren't staring at him tonight. Him or his three mates. _A year ago a stunt like this would've had me spitting, _she thought absently. Now… it was actually quite impressive. _And attractive._

All four Marauders were wearing luridly spangled robes. Peter's were purple; Remus was wearing silver; Sirius, deep blue, and James Potter… gold. How Lily had missed them before, she had no idea: the light of the candles above caught on each and every sequin attached to the wizards. Even when she turned her head away a little bit she could still see their bright forms picked out in purple, silver, blue and gold in her periphery. The gold was the brightest.

_Oh dear,_ was all Lily could think.

'I hope you're not thinking that your outfits match,' came a voice by her side. Marlene had come up behind her and was smiling widely. 'Your dress is brown and his robes are gold. If anything, you make up the Hufflepuff crest, which is not particularly impressive.'

'It's _bronze,_ not brown, thank you very much,' Lily said sharply, trying not to look like she was staring. Marlene let her pretend for all of ten seconds, then pulled her bodily over to the table, saying, 'You're not ruining this night for yourself quite yet, Evans. There'll be plenty of time for that later. Focus on something else.' There was a basket of bread in the middle of the table. 'Have some bread.' Naturally, Lily's attention was spectacularly diverted when a hunk of the stuff was shoved into her mouth.

All in all, the ball was a huge success. The feast was spectacular: a person had only to tap twice to the right-hand side of their plate, speak clearly what they would like to eat and it would appear. For the most part, that is: when Mary asked for coq au vin, she got a saveloy and three kidney beans. It was quickly deduced that one had to ask for the closest English equivalent of foreign dishes, otherwise one's plate would fill with the default sausage and beans.

Marlene made sure Lily was entirely distracted: there was no end to good company on the sixth year girls' table. Benjy Fenwick was drawn in to amuse her with his hand-drawn informative guide to troll hunting. Adella Creevey was making the rounds in a lurid yellow gown, giving out pamphlets and an impassioned soliloquy about the plight of gnomes and other household creatures. Lily was also lucky enough to hear from Dermot Weasley and Patrick Bates exactly how the world was going to end before 1985.

The 'mayhem' component of the theme was justified before dessert: that's when the fireworks started. And they were spectacular. For a solid ten minutes, the darkened Great Hall was lit up like the sun in every colour imaginable. The fireworks wove among the students and teachers, cool to the touch, painting the air with glitter. It was truly magical mayhem.

The dancing began afterwards. Lily had her back to the dance floor all night – to avoid looking at a Certain Sequined Someone, as Marlene called him – and had managed to come up with many a stellar excuse not to dance: 'Thank you for the offer, Kevin, but my pancreas has been swelling of late, so I'll have to pass', 'You're quite the mover, Daniel, but I've had one saveloy too many tonight: I had better sit here and digest' and simply 'never ever, Hickory.'

But Mary and Alice were a touch more persuasive – and threatening – than these unlucky suitors, and towards the end of the night, Lily found herself in the middle of a group of sixth and seventh year witches, belting out the chorus of the new Hinkypunks hit, 'Bewitch Me', on the purple dance floor. The song went down so well, in fact, that Marlene went right up to the band and 'sweet-talked' them into playing it twice more without pause.

After the third time, Lily was exhausted and beginning to hate the song. The final chords gave way to a slow, crooning saxophone solo and she sighed. _A slow song. Fantastic. _She mouthed, 'I'll sit this one out,' to Alice, and was about to creep back to her seat when she heard a voice behind her.

'You want to dance?'

Lily's heart almost thudded to a stop. She turned slowly… and her heart resumed beating. _Remus._

'Do you know how?' she asked dubiously. Shaking his head and grinning, her silver-clad friend took her by the waist and pulled her hand into his. 'Nope. Dim lighting covers all sins, though. Just follow what everyone else is doing.'

'Great costume,' Lily said, plucking at a spangle with a laugh as they began a slow, fumbling turn around the dance floor. 'Did you hand sew the sequins?'

'I have hidden talents, young witch,' Remus said. 'Sewing is not one of them.' He paused and looked down at her and rolled his eyes dramatically, a tiny smile on his face. 'Sorting out your mad relationship issues seems to be, though.'

'Sorry,' she said, partly for the "mad relationship issues" and partly for stepping very heavily on his toe. 'What's… what's the go, then?'

* * *

The final task of the prefects was an extra lengthy patrol. It logically followed that students would be up into the wee hours of the morning after the ball ended, and while the heads of house accepted that they would be hard-pressed to quash the inevitable after-parties, traversing the corridors after hours, it was sternly dictated, would not be tolerated. The Gryffindor prefects had been assigned a fourth floor corridor, but Remus wouldn't be joining Lily on patrol tonight.

She had very purposefully kept her eye off James all throughout the ball, knowing that if she were to think too much about him she'd psych herself out. But waiting for James in a deathly silent corridor was giving her plenty of time to do just that.

It was cold in the drafty upper levels of the castle, so she had run up to get her bright purple dressing gown to wear over her dress before coming to wait here. She was regretting it now. _Now I look stupid._ _This whole thing is so incredibly stupid,_ she thought, fingers writhing in front of her. The corridor was completely silent. _I should get to bed. Oh Lordy. How did I let them talk me into this?_ But her feet seemed frozen in place on the stone floor.

Five minutes passed.

Ten minutes.

Lily sighed. _He's not coming._

Just as she was trying to decide whether or not she felt this was a good thing, the sound of footsteps rang through the corridor.

They got louder and louder until, shining in gold, with a loosened cravat and hands shoved deep into his dress trousers, James Potter turned the corner. He stopped a good distance away from her.

Despite his dress robes, he didn't look like he had just come from a ball. _He looks like he's going to war._ Lily felt her shoulders curl in. On his face was the most incredibly guarded expression she had ever seen. His eyes were dark behind his glasses and his mouth was a tense line.

'Remus said you wanted to talk.'

* * *

Woohoo! Dun dun dun! What's going to happen? Am I super mean? I might be persuaded to post part two a few days early..


	11. Dressing Gowns & Dinner Jackets, part 2

You ask, I deliver. Enjoy :)

* * *

**Dressing Gowns & Dinner Jackets, part two**

**or**

**There's No Place Like Home, Thrice**

_The sound of footsteps rang through the corridor. They got louder and louder until, shining in gold, with a loosened cravat and hands shoved deep into his dress trousers, James Potter turned the corner. He stopped a good distance away from her._

_Despite his dress robes, he didn't look like he had just come from a ball. _He looks like he's going to war_. Lily felt her shoulders curl in. On his face was the most incredibly guarded expression she had ever seen. His eyes were dark behind his glasses and his mouth was a tense line._

'Remus said you wanted to talk.'

Lily had to clear her throat. 'Yes.' She wrapped her dressing gown more tightly around her. 'I do – I did.'

James weighed the answer. He frowned. 'You don't want to anymore?'

'No – yes, I do!' she said quickly. _How to start is the problem._

Charged silence filled the space. He was staring at her with an inscrutable look on his face that was making her extremely nervous.

'Are you wearing your dressing gown?'

If James was amused or bemused, Lily couldn't tell. Not the emotion crossed his face.

'This is my ball gown,' she said in a feeble attempt to break the ice. _Merlin, it got colder when he walked in._

He sighed and looked down at the flagstones. Once, twice, he tapped the points of his shiny dress shoes together. It reminded Lily too much of the part in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy desperately wants to disappear from Oz.

Looking suddenly up at her with thinly veiled anger on his face, he asked, 'what is it, Evans?' In a sharper voice: 'what do you want to talk about?'

_Shit._

'I just wanted to say that… I'd like to be friends.'

There was utter silence for a few moments. Lily rambled on, trying to fill the tense, anticipatory silence. 'I mean, recently we've been – we've been really friendly and it's been… really great, but I just don't know where we stand and I'd like to… I'd like to know,' she finished feebly. James looked back down at the ground. The light of the torches caught the spangles on his jacket, throwing dots of gold light across the pale stone wall. The effect was dazzling. A long exhale of breath and a few stamps of the feet later, he looked up. The torchlight reflected off his glasses, too. Lily couldn't see his eyes.

'We can't do this, Evans,' he said, wearily. He looked so tired.

'We haven't even tried yet,' Lily said in a very little voice.

Frustrated, he said, 'I don't know how to be friends with you.' His voice grew louder. 'You don't know how to be friends with me. Why do you even want to be friends?' The last question was blunt and forced and echoed through the corridor for a few seconds after. Before she could answer, he muttered, 'I can't take you seriously in that dressing gown.'

Lily was knocked off kilter by the abrupt change of tack. 'I'm not taking it off,' she said defensively, her response a little delayed. 'It's too cold.'

'Take it off,' James said, frowning. 'I'm not talking to a two-year old.'

'Are you trying to start an argument?' Lily asked, frowning, 'I'm not–'

'_Don't!_'

She had moved to take a step towards him. She paused, foot suspended in midair. 'What?' she asked, disoriented. Even James looked surprised at his own outburst.

'Just… just stay where you are.' He drew in a shaky breath. 'Why are you… This is really… _Jesus_, Evans.'

'It's Lily, not Jesus.' _Oh, golden opportunity for a pun, was it?_

Sure enough, he glared at her. 'I'm really not in the mood, Evans.' He threw his head back and huffed once, staring at the high ceiling. After a moment, he began to shrug out of his spangled gold jacket. Without looking at her, he threw her the garment, saying 'wear that. I'm not talking to you in that ridiculous outfit.' He stood there, face averted from hers, his shoulders broad in his white shirt, waiting for her to put it on. Without a word, Lily began to slide her arms into it. It was a tight fit over her fluffy dressing gown, but it was warm from where it had been touching his skin and smelt like him.

An errant laugh burst from his mouth when he looked up at her. 'I didn't mean _over_ your dressing gown. You look even more ridiculous.' Then he shook his head firmly and sobered before her heart had time to lift with hope. 'This… isn't a good idea.' He scrubbed a hand across his face. 'I don't think I can be friends with you.'

'I heard that part,' Lily said stubbornly, crossing her arms. The extra layers made it difficult to bend her elbows. 'But you didn't say why.'

James looked at her like she was a total idiot. 'Does it really need saying, Evans? Are you serious?'

'No, I'm Lily.' _Fabulous. The Great Mouth of Lily Evans strikes again._ 'Sorry. Nervous,' she said quickly when he looked like he was about to explode. After a moment of deep breathing, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, James nodded sharply. He pivoted to face the wall. '_Jesus_,' she heard him mutter.

After a good minute of very obvious self-collection, he turned slowly so that he was facing the wall, presenting her with his profile. 'You want reasons, Evans?' he asked, tilting his head back to stare at the torchlight, flickering in its bracket. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. 'Daisy's my girlfriend. That's… that's one of _many _reasons.'

Lily frowned. 'I'm not – I'm not propositioning you, if that's what you thought. Bloody hell, James–'

At his name his head shot up to look at her. Shock flitted across his face, quickly eclipsed by anger. 'I thought it was _Potter_ to you, Evans,' he said, his voice so furious that Lily took a step back in surprise.

Once she had recovered herself, she frowned deeply. 'Why are you so edgy?' she asked, incredulous. 'What do you expect me to do?' She mimicked his voice: '"_Don't come any closer; don't call me James."_'

He ignored her questions and threw his hands in the air. 'I don't know what you've been doing recently – watching me, smiling, laughing at my jokes, flirting –'

'I have not been flirting with you!' Lily said hotly, voice shrill with disbelief. 'What, we have a conversation where I don't yell at you and it's suddenly flirting?'

'Yes!' He said, eyes blazing. At her incredulously raised eyebrows he paused, frowning. 'No. No, yes! I mean… I don't – you should _know_-' he punctuated the word by punching a fist into his open palm '-that I – I _operate_ differently around you! I process your actions so differently than anybody else.'

'That's not my fault,' she said primly, trying to look dignified in her dressing gown and dinner jacket. 'You're taking your anger at your own idiocy out on me.'

'But you know how I am around you! And I have a girlfriend!' Each word was enunciated and angry. 'You screwed me over! Close to two hundred times if Marlene's bloody tally is right!'

'It was under one hundred and fifty! And I just want to be friends!' Lily said, outraged now. Their voices were bouncing furiously off the stone walls. They were all quick-breathing and flashing eyes and red-faces and clenched fists. 'I'm not trying anything! Why can't I be your friend?'

'Because we'll never just be friends, Evans! I can't _ever_ just be your friend!' The words seemed to explode from him. Silence crashed over them. His shoulders were tense. He had said something that he probably never wanted her to hear.

'_This_–' James gestured between the two of them '-this doesn't translate into friendship. What we are is not friend material.'

_What's he saying?_ Lily couldn't understand what he meant.

'We've got – you and I…' He trailed off and growled with frustration. A twitchy hand ripped through his hair. 'I really like Daisy,' he said suddenly, furiously, turning on Lily and pinning her with a freezing stare. 'But you and I, Evans, we've got something that you just refused to see for so long. It's – it's unexplainable,' he said, his voice suddenly very brittle. His hands clenched at the empty air. 'It's like we're that anomaly where the sun covers the moon or the moon covers the sun or whatever and it's _awesome_. It shouldn't be, and it shouldn't work, but _it's awesome_ when you and I are together. And now all of a sudden you feel it and you're flipping everything upside down! Again! You don't get to do that to my life again!'

He was more angry and distressed than Lily had ever seen him. The dark shock of hair was standing on end from where he had gripped it with both hands. Restless energy radiated from him: he couldn't stop moving, like a spring winding tighter and tighter. Comparatively, Lily was frozen: she could only watch him, feeling as if she had suddenly become cold-blooded.

'You've felt it recently and I've always felt it and it's always going to be awesome, but you… you said no, Evans.' Now his voice was startlingly unstable. 'You said no when you had the chance. I was young, Evans, and stupid, but it ripped me up. And I've got Daisy. So I don't know if I could–' his voice went gruff '–I don't know how to be your friend.'

The rejection was met with utter silence. Lily felt like her gut was falling away. She was shivering despite the extra layers.

Neither of them said anything for several minutes. Lily stood on her side of the corridor, wearing a bronze dress, a bright purple dressing gown and a spangled gold dinner jacket, eyes wide and lips pinched. James was half-turned away from her, hands clenching and unclenching by his sides.

_How the hell did this escalate? What have I done?_

_What is he saying?_

It was completely mad – and this really says a lot about Lily's mad brain – but it was at this moment, when it all seemed completely over, when James was turning away from her for the last time, that she began to hope. It was at this moment that Lily _got_ something. She _understood_.

_He felt it too._

It wasn't over. She hadn't completely squashed the spark. He was angry because he still cared. _He can't be my friend because we've got something awesome. Like the moon covering the sun or the sun covering the moon or whatever. We've got to be more._

'Be my friend, Potter,' she said quietly. Something was beginning.

James had begun to walk away. At her words he turned again, irritation on his face. 'Didn't you hear any of that, Evans? _No_.'

'Alright, then,' she said calmly. 'I won't be your friend, but you'll be mine.'

He stopped walking. If Lily weren't sure he was furious with her, she'd have thought he was trying not to laugh. 'Evans… it doesn't work like that.'

'Yes, it does,' Lily said unflappably. 'You don't think we can be friends, Potter? Well, I consider you my friend, so we're halfway there.'

'We're not –' James stopped and shook his head, a wry smile on his lips. 'How the tables have turned, Evans,' he said, just a trace of bitterness in his voice.

As he walked off down the corridor, Lily muttered to herself, 'challenge accepted.' James must have still been listening, because she heard his soft answering laugh echo off the walls.

_It's time to start a new tally, Potter. _

_Prepare to be chased._

* * *

Gasp!


	12. Cold War Witches

Thanks for the super positive response to the last chapter, guys! Here's a MAMMOTH of a chapter as a thank you present. And I mean MAMMOTH - this is double the size of my usual chapters. It was going to be two, but I felt so warm and cuddly inside after reading your reviews that I decided to post it in one gargantuan block of drama. Onwards!

* * *

**Cold War Witches**

**or**

**A Life in Italics**

The day after the ball, Lily spied Daisy Abbott sitting alone at the Hufflepuff table at lunch. She was clearly absorbed in reading through a large stack of notes, but before her brain could process the brilliant thought she had just had as a terrible idea, Lily charged up to the table.

'Daisy. Hi.'

The blonde looked up, startled. 'Lily,' she said, eyes widening. After a second's hesitation she moved her bag off the bench. 'Sorry for the mess. Have a seat. Have you already eaten?'

Lily took the seat and looked the girl square in the face. She took a deep breath. 'Daisy.' Her tone of voice was serious.

The other girl sat up a little straighter. Her eyes dropped to Lily's tightly clasped hands and she opened her mouth to say something, but the redhead ploughed determinedly over her. 'I've seen recently that you've been worried about – about me and James.'

Daisy's eyes widened. She looked rather like a Botticelli angel with her blonde curls and huge blue peepers. 'Oh, no,' she said, laughing awkwardly, clearly trying very hard to look unfazed. She waved a dismissive hand, not quite meeting Lily's eyes. 'No, don't worry! I'm not – I know you're not – it's really not–'

'Yes it is. It is a problem,' Lily said, cutting her off again. She had thought it impossible, but Daisy's eyes widened even further. A flush crept onto her cheeks and a tremble began in her lip. 'I'm sorry, what do-'

_Oh, Merlin, that must have sounded terrible._ 'Wait, no! No! I wasn't trying to say that there _is _something-' it was Lily's turn to force laughter '-going on between James and I!' The other witch really didn't look reassured, so she continued hastily, 'I meant that there _is _a problem if you're worried. You shouldn't have to feel like that.'

Face tense now, Daisy replied stiffly, 'I don't really understand, Lily.'

_Get it all out in the open._

'I want you to know that I'm trying to be James's friend.'

Daisy wasn't very good at hiding how she felt: her frame stiffened at the statement. 'But I also want you to know that you don't have to worry.' Lily wanted to honestly show all of her good intent. 'I know it seems suspicious, me suddenly being friendly with him, and it took an effort at the beginning–' _Now, that's entirely truthful._ Daisy almost cracked a smile '-but it's almost the end of the year,' the other girl said solemnly. 'We've got one year left, Daisy, and there's enough crap going on outside school without… without this rubbish.'

The blonde wouldn't meet Lily's eyes, but her shoulders weren't so tense anymore.

'You're muggleborn,' the Gryffindor said, searching the other girl's pale face for a wisp of kindred spirit. Maybe it was manipulative or underhanded; maybe it was a low blow, but Lily felt very deeply what she said next. 'You know as well as I do that we'll have too many enemies outside this castle next year to waste friendships this year. I want to rebuild a few bridges before it's too late.'

There was silence for a few moments, but Lily thought that Daisy understood. At the very least, she realised that it was the time for honesty. 'I _was _worried,' she admitted, looking down at her notes. 'Everyone knows how much he liked you. I was worried that he'd – he'd–'

'Forget about you?' Lily laughed and winced at the bitter note she heard in the sound. Daisy didn't seem to notice, though. 'He'd be absolutely mad to, Daisy,' the redhead said softly, swallowing down a lump in her throat at how true the statement was. 'You've got nothing to worry about.' That was a lie, but she shoved away the thought for the moment.

'Why are you telling me this?' the Hufflepuff said after a moment, voice still a little fragile. 'I mean, I'm really… actually very grateful for it…' she mumbled softly, 'but why now?'

_Oh well, if we're being honest._ Lily took a deep breath. 'I spoke to James last night.'

Again Daisy stiffened, but after a moment it seemed that she was trying to give Lily the benefit of the doubt. Her forehead was creased with anxiety, but she was trying valiantly to just look curious. 'Oh? I didn't see you talking at the ball…'

'It was later on,' Lily said vaguely. Then she looked Daisy straight in the eyes. 'I told him that I wanted to be friends and he told me that he couldn't because of you.' It was only part of the truth, but truth-_ful_ nonetheless. 'He knew how that would be for you… He knew that it might not be fair to you.'

The girl's lip was trembling again. 'He really cares about you, Daisy,' Lily said gently. It hurt to say it. 'So I wanted to tell you that all my cards are above the table.' _Most of them_. The little splinter was back. _What else can I say?_ she wondered miserably.

'He told you no, huh?' Daisy said, giving a watery smile. 'What are you going to do, then?'

Heaving a bolstering sigh, Lily replied briskly, 'you might not know this about me, Abbott, but I don't respond well to the word no. And I think I owe your boyfriend a bit of pain for all the childish public displays of yester years. We are going to be mates whether he likes it or not.' She paused, frowning. 'I should amend my previous statement: it's part rebuilding bridges, part revenge.'

'I have noticed that you can be quite forceful,' Daisy said, her smile growing. The worry seemed to have evaporated from her face and she was more relaxed now. 'Poor James.'

'Yes.' Lily laughed and began to rise from the bench. 'Poor James.' She stopped next to the table. Her next words were halting, but genuine. 'Thanks, Daisy. For listening. For understanding.'

The other girl nodded. 'I'm really glad we talked, Lily,' she said softly, fingers fidgeting with her notes.

As she was turning to leave, Lily, acting on inspiration, asked suddenly, 'do you know who Botticelli is?'

Daisy shook her head, curious. 'No… Should I?'

'Nope,' Lily said lightly. 'It's nothing.' Then, with a last smile and a wiggle of her fingers, she left her perfect rival to study.

As she strode away towards the Entrance Hall, her chest felt like it was opening up and her feet felt particularly light. _That was the right thing to do. I did the right thing._ In fact, Lily felt so incredibly free that she beamed all the way down the hall and called a cheery 'Hello there,' to three or four people she didn't know very well.

'Lily,' she heard someone behind her call. 'Lily!'

Friedrich Vance was running to catch up with her. He had been sitting at the end of the Ravenclaw table and coincidentally at the receiving end of one of her exuberant greetings. She turned around and waited for him. 'Fred,' she said, beaming at him. 'Dear old Fred. Did my salutation inspire you to come and have a chat?'

'No, no,' he said, waving a hand. 'I mean, yes, I'd love to chat, but I just – I just wanted to know if Emmeline – I mean, I was wondering if you knew where Emmeline was.'

_No way. No way!_ Lily crowed mentally, watching the dashing young wizard stumble over his words. She had to fight back a fist pump. _Everything is brilliant._ Feigning nonchalance, she casually commented, 'she usually has a free after lunch. I think she had an Arithmancy study session planned with Adam Prescott.'

'Oh.' He was frowning. 'Oh. Alright. Thanks, Lily.' He was about to turn away, but she put a hand on his arm. 'I, er, I don't think she'd mind having you third wheel, though.' The comment was very heavily laden with suggestion.

Friedrich's eyebrows shot up. 'Really?' Lily nodded slowly, trying to make him see that _she's been waiting for this forever, you great idiot _with her eyes alone. 'I'll just… I'll just get my Astronomy charts, then–'

'Arithmancy, Vance.'

'Right.' He was blushing, but his eyes were bright with nervous energy. 'Off to the library, then, I suppose…'

Lily ushered him off, feeling as though things were finally beginning and they were all _good._

_Yes. And it is a good day for things to begin._

* * *

Somewhere along the way – maybe it was between yelling at James and reconciling with Daisy – Lily had received an unexpected parcel of reckless determination and confidence. What had resulted was somewhat like a body swap.

Well, not quite, but there weren't many other ways to put it: James was right; the tables had turned. They then did several somersaults, took a trip to Freaky Town and finally the damn bits of furniture were blasted into atoms by a thermonuclear bomb of irony.

James had become Lily and Lily had become James.

Not physically – although Marlene made a point to mention how Lily's chin was definitely becoming more masculine – but within a week of the ball, the new tally of Times Lily Asks James To Be Her Friend had already reached a count of twenty-three.

It was all kept very above the table; very platonic. Where James's public displays had been for Lily and Lily alone, the redhead had, by necessity, more than one person in her target audience. Daisy, Sirius, Remus, and every other person who supported team Jaisy were watching her very carefully, so the pranks had to be comical, not intimate.

One morning, the words 'be my friend, Potter' were spelt out in jam on the breakfast muffins in front of his usual bench. Snatching up the muffin inscribed with the letter r as he passed, James moved coolly to a different part of the table. 'Be my fiend, Potter' didn't quite hold the same weight.

During Ancient Runes, Dorcas, sitting next to the sooty-haired Marauder, switched the page of runes he was supposed to be translating with her own. He got as far as 'be my fri' before he stopped and calmly requested a new page from the professor.

At dinner, Gen Clearwater, who was particularly good at Charms, put a cheeky little charm on his cutlery. Whenever he took a bite of a starchy vegetable, the fork squeaked 'don't fork with me, Potter!' and any time he cut a wheat-based product, the knife proclaimed 'cut the crap, friendship's where it's at!' Halfway through the meal, after a poor, confused third year ducked below the table to reclaim her serviette and returned to eating her shepherds pie, she had no idea why cutlery was suddenly being so uncouth.

In the beginning, the way James reacted to Lily's frankly childish pranks was a testament to how much he'd grown up. Where she would have once exploded he just refused to acknowledge that anything had happened at all. However: she was wearing him down. Not into agreeing – there was clearly still a way to go with that – but he was slowly losing his patience.

'A year ago today,' Dorcas said two weeks after the fateful conversation with Daisy, when the tally was up to thirty-eight and James's face was growing progressively redder each time he was accosted, 'James Potter set the tail of Avery's broomstick on fire and somehow spelled out, "Evans, you're my snake's only charmer" with the smoke in the sky above the castle.'

Dorcas, Emmeline and Mary were moving around the dormitory, getting ready for the Quidditch game – Gryffindor against Ravenclaw – due to start in twenty minutes. Lily was ready and waiting for them, sitting on her bed with a Quidditch banner in her lap. She frowned. 'How do you remember that?'

'The Herbology O.W.L. is the same day each year. Today, in fact,' Emmeline said, coming out of the bathroom and trying absently to pull her gloves onto her feet. 'How could we possibly forget it? You stood in the middle of the courtyard, yelling louder than most thought humanly possible that you were trying to remember the seven phases of the Mandrake lifecycle and ash kept getting in your eyes.'

'Oh, yes,' Lily muttered darkly. 'I remember.'

'Anyway,' Dorcas said, winding a Gryffindor scarf around her neck. 'That was last year. This year, today, on the very same day, you bribed several second years, stood on the table at breakfast and led them in singing "Why Can't We Be Friends" as he ate his porridge.' She paused, looking as if everything she had held as truth had crumbled before her eyes. 'And he just sat there, face as red as – as –'

'Jam?' Mary put in, reaching under her bed for a hairbrush, trying to hide her gigantic grin from the other girls. Lily glared at her and, finger pointed accusingly, opened her mouth to perjure, but Dorcas frowned.

'We've heard your theory, Lily. Many times over.' Dorcas shared no physical resemblance to Patricia Evans, but Lily sometimes felt like she was present all the same if Dorcas had on her mum face. 'Anyway, where was I? Yes: jam, thank you, Mary. So he just sits there, face like jam, pretending that the whole thing isn't happening. _Ignoring _Lily Evans as she makes a sad and desperate attempt for his attention.' Dorcas shook her head. 'The world has actually gone mad.'

'I saw Mary put something in my hot chocolate!' Lily said loudly for the seventeenth time since breakfast. 'I swear it; I _swear_ I saw it; otherwise I'd never have done that! It was a little gold bottle-'

'Stop blaming Mary,' Dorcas chided her through the woolly jumper she was pulling over her head. Mary had her back very decidedly to Lily and didn't say anything, but when Dorcas wasn't looking, she shot Lily a grin and two thumbs up.

It was early May and exams had really crept up on the sixth years. As the witches joined the masses of Hogwarts students in trekking down to the Quidditch pitch, Lily realised how very soon they actually were.

'Wait.' The others stopped talking and looked at her. 'We've got two weeks until the first exam.'

Dorcas and Mary looked a little worried. Emmeline didn't look fazed at all. 'She'll be grand,' she said as they climbed the stairs into the Gryffindor stand. 'That's because you've been studying with Prescott every day,' Mary said, smirking. 'They're actual study sessions, then?'

Marlene was lying lengthways across a bench halfway up the stand to reserve them seats. As they shuffled in, Mary paid for the favour in chocolate.

'Yes!' Emmeline said, laughing, once they were seated. Then a blush crept up onto her cheeks and she burrowed her chin down into her scarf. 'We couldn't possibly do anything else… because Friedrich's been there almost every time.'

Lily bent over and began to unfold her hand-drawn banner very busily to hide her grin as the rest of the witches gasped and demanded an explanation.

Their quizzing was cut short when Albert Biggs took to the microphone and began to announce the Gryffindor players. As he called out 'Captain James Potter, Chaser!' and the Gryffindor crowd roared with enthusiasm, Lily yelled 'Here,' and passed one end of her banner to Marlene, standing at the other end of the row. 'Hold this up.' Emmeline, sandwiched between Dorcas and Mary, took the middle of the banner and raised it above her head as well. 'What does it say?' she asked. She turned her head to read it and laughed aloud, then yelled over the ruckus, 'ha! That's fantastic!'

For the next three hours and two minutes Lily wasn't aware of any player but James Potter. To be entirely honest, she didn't really know what was happening in the game anyway and a few times she accidentally cheered when Ravenclaw scored. Normally she'd be dead bored by this point; never had she ever spent three whole hours watching sport, but it didn't matter. She was just waiting for the moment he turned his head to the Gryffindor stands and saw the huge banner saying 'CHASE THE QUAFFLE OF FRIENDSHIP, POTTER' in letters shaped like abysmally drawn lions in the fifth row from the top.

But James Potter was serious about Quidditch. That was an understatement. James Potter was very, _very_ serious about Quidditch. In third year, the ministry had decided that each and every hormonal student had to visit a Ministry-provided counsellor at least once to pass the year. When asked what the best things in his life were, James had reputedly replied 'Quidditch, the lads and Lily Evans.' Quidditch had come _before_ the 'light of his life' and even the lads. As such, it didn't much surprise Lily that it took almost two hours for him to notice the banner.

The exact moment he did, however, she knew.

Down on the ground Professor Finknottle, the umpire, was conjuring an injured second year called Ludovic Bagman onto a stretcher for having his nose quite literally flattened against ground in a high-speed collision. James was hovering high above the pitch, roughly the size of a Sickle to those in the stands below, doing a slow zigzag, back and forth, back and forth. Then he stopped. The pale, indistinct oval of his face was pointed in the direction of the Gryffindor stand.

'Quick, Mary, give me your binoculars,' Lily said hastily, thrusting her arm out. 'Quick, quick!' When the desired item was brought forth, she put them to her eyes and readjusted the focus.

_Bloody hell_, was her first thought. _That uniform is… very nice_. Her second thought wasn't really a thought; more a bodily function: her heart palpably sped up. He looked completely torn between frustration and amusement.

'Guys. Guys,' she heard herself saying with disbelief, her right arm flapping in front of the others to get their attention. 'He thinks it's funny.' She squinted a little. 'Well, he's not _entirely_ angry. He's not entirely angry!'

Emmeline reached across Mary and snatched the binoculars. 'I do believe you're right, Lil,' the thief said, at which Lily forgot she was cross about having the binoculars pilfered and actually began jumping on the spot. 'He really looks like he's trying not to laugh. In between trying not to scream with frustration. Actually, it's more one part hilarity to five parts fury.'

Lily didn't care. That one part hilarity meant progress.

* * *

No one was sure how she wrangled it, or if she actually had anything to do with it all, the mind of Sirius Black being ever impermeable, but Lily somehow gained the surly Marauder's blessing. Honestly, the exchange was hardly a profound one, and she probably read far too much into it, but she somehow - _accidentally_ - scored another supporter.

Sixth years had the entire week preceding exams off in order to study. By the third day Lily felt like dying: she had barely lifted her head out of a book since Monday, and so it was time for a well-deserved break. The most recent attempt upon James's friendship had been a week and a half ago. As such, after about four hours of deathly dull studying on Wednesday morning, Dorcas and Lily could be found squatting in the Great Hall twenty minutes before lunch, attaching confetti missiles to the underside of the Gryffindor table.

'It's nice to have a project,' Lily was telling Dorcas cheerfully. 'I can really see where James was coming from last year. You get kind of carried away by the drama of the thing.'

Dorcas snorted. 'What? You, kind of carried away?' The confetti missile was almost shoved somewhere that would have been very uncomfortable for Dorcas, but she took the comment back in time.

When the prank was almost complete, Lily noticed a flaw in the proceedings. 'I'm going to have to tell Remus to guide him over this way,' she muttered, squinting up at the wooden planks.

'Fear not, Evans, I can do that.'

The very loud voice came from behind them and both Dorcas and Lily – amateur pranksters and so terrified of being caught in the act – jolted violently at it. Dorcas's head ploughed into the table and Lily yelped like a small schnauzer. When they had collected themselves with many an expletive, they crept out from under the table and regarded their assailant. Slouching stylishly in the middle of the Hall, Sirius Black was watching them with both hands in his pockets and a languid grin on his face.

'That left bomb is upside down, by the way. It'll shoot him in the foot.'

Temporarily struck dumb, Lily could only stare at him. _Is he laughing? _After a second, when it became clear that he _was _laughing, she looked down at the half-finished prank. 'Oh, right. Thanks. That wouldn't be too funny.'

Dorcas said stonily, 'it's actually a missile.' Rubbing her bumped head, she shot the Marauder a vicious look and crawled back under the table to correct the issue.

'Wow, Meadowes!' Sirius said, taking a step back, arms up in mock-alarm. 'This is not the political climate in which to be discussing weapons of mass destruction! Especially not with that look on your face.'

'You pay attention to Muggle news?' Lily said a bit blankly.

Sirius shrugged. 'It's a wee bit hard to miss America and Russia threatening to blow the world up, Lily Evans, even with old Voldy on the loose,' he said. 'Anyway, what I was saying is that I'd lead him over this way.' At the look on both witches' faces, his eyes widened. 'Good Lord, _Prongs, _not Voldy. Even_ I_ wouldn't make a joke in such poor taste as that.'

Trying not to look suspicious, Lily asked tentatively, 'but… why would you do that? Help me, that is.'

'I dunno,' Sirius said. A smirk grew on his face. 'Maybe I see something of myself in you.' He rubbed his chin like a mystic.

'Take that back!' Lily yelped, half-alarmed.

'No, I'm being very genuine. Serious, even.' She groaned and he winked. 'You've got… backbone, Evans.'

Lily didn't feel much better at that and from under the table Dorcas spoke the redhead's mind. 'You do realise that backbone to you means sheer stupidity to most other people...'

Sirius looked very hurt and when the witches made no attempt to soothe his wounded pride, he stalked off. Lily thought that'd be the end of it all, however, half an hour later a red-faced James Potter rose slowly from a cloud of magically buoyant confetti and walked in measured steps from the Great Hall. The confetti followed him, which gave the impression that he was inside a very colourful snow globe. Daisy, trying valiantly to keep the grin off her face and maintain a sympathetic expression, put down her sandwich and hurried after him.

* * *

He only lasted three weeks.

After the Ancient Runes exam, as Lily was cramming in the last few futile skerricks of knowledge, about ten minutes before the Transfiguration exam was due to begin, James came storming into the library.

'Evans!' he roared when he saw her. Heads all over the library shot up, curious to see what had fractured the peace as efficiently as a shotgun in a silent forest.

Madame DeLange looked scandalised. '_Mister Potter_,' she whispered from her desk in her over-italicised, eternally distressed way. 'This is a_ sanctuary_, not a _Quidditch pitch_! I _must _ask you to _lower _your _voice._'

'Right you are, Madame,' he said shortly, his back stiff. When the librarian's attention was diverted once again by the ecstatic joys of binary coding, he whirled around on a slack-jawed Lily. Marching right up to the desk she was working at, he ducked down until their eyes were level, visibly shaking with anger.

'_Why_,' he ground out, obviously trying very hard to keep is voice low and sedate, his eyebrows gathered like storm clouds on the bridge of his nose, 'why is there a bloody _niffler_ in a _pink skirt_ in our dormitory?'

_Oh, shit._ Lily wanted to die.

'I _told _Mary it wouldn't work,' she mumbled.

'_What _wouldn't work?' he growled, eyes flashing. She swallowed. He was so close that his breath was tickling her nose. 'Don't – don't flip, but she heard from Kent Dullard that lead counteracts the niffler's attraction to shiny metals… and she somehow got a niffler and a very small lead vest and, well, the rest is… history…' She trailed off at the look on his face.

'Well, it didn't work,' he snarled. 'And it was wearing a skirt, not a lead vest.'

'Yes, well, it was supposed to be a Friendship Niffler. They're actually very cute when they're… sedated,' Lily bumbled, awkwardly arranging her different quills into a neat row. 'It was a tutu, not a skirt,' she added in a whisper for no particular reason.

At this, he closed his eyes, let his head fall forward onto the library table just to the right of Lily's arm and was still_._ The thick, dark hair on his neck curled just slightly, forming a perfect, curving wave her fingers were yearning to slide into. He was breathing evenly and deeply, and his fist was clenched upon his knee. With his shirtsleeves rolled up, she could see tendons moving under his skin as the fingers tightened and loosened with each breath. It showed just how far gone Lily was that she found herself completely mesmerised by watching him doing absolutely nothing at all. While he was obviously very, very angry with her.

'A… a friendship niffler,' he groaned into the tabletop. After a few seconds he looked up at her. His face was one of forced calm, but his eyes were still narrowed and spitting. _It's passion_, the Scarlett O'Hara in Lily cried. And to anyone else it would have actually looked like it was, she realised later: he was kneeling in front of her, barely a breath away, glaring. _If this were a film, I would lean down right now and kiss him violently_.

As if swept up in the drama of the thought, one of her hands actually came up to brush the thick sweep of hair off his forehead. _What are you doing?_ She regained autonomy in the nick of time, but both pairs of eyes were drawn curiously to the hand floating in the air between them.

Then his gaze shifted. James looked at Lily.

Madame deLange could have mooned the entire library at that moment and she wouldn't have noticed. He was staring at her, his eyes wide and alert, breathing shallowly through his nose. There was a slight furrow on his forehead as if he was surprised, and his gaze was flitting across her face, chronicling every detail of her expression. Nose, brow, eyes... mouth. Hers parted as if in anticipation.

One of his hands was resting near her and she had to make a tight fist to stop from covering it with her own. His teeth clicked as he tried to avert his eyes from her face and kept looking back, as if the pale, freckled expanse of skin was magnetic.

But in the quicksilver changes that Lily had come to associate, not yet anticipate, from him, the clear, hopeful expression was gone and storm clouds gathered again. It happened in a heartbeat: he burst. '_This_, Evans,' he hissed, jabbing the table with his fingertips to punctuate. '_This _is the reason we can't be friends. I can't let you get any closer than this.'

Lily was taken aback by the outburst. 'We would be fantastic friends!' She searched his angry features for a grain of acknowledgement and found none. Her voice faltered. 'And - and I'm not going to stop trying. I'm getting really into it, actually,' she said, trying to sound chipper. A feeling that was surprisingly like vulnerability was causing her shoulders to cave in with its weight. 'I _finally_ understand your obsession with Zonko's! The place is a haven._ So_ many _pranks_.'

The humour didn't touch him. Lily wasn't even sure that he was listening to her. 'Why can't you let – it – go,' he whispered fiercely, his eyes searching hers. His chest was touching her knees. 'Let – it – go.' It almost sounded like he was saying it to himself. Lily watched his lips shape out the stark, cold syllables and had to forcibly restrain herself from tracing them with the hand that was still hovering in front of her chest.

'James–'

'No, Evans,' he spat, standing suddenly and wheeling away from the table. 'I _don't_ want to be your friend. I can't stand to be near you.' The words were precise and clipped and freezing cold. She must have lost her magnetism, for he had no problem avoiding her eyes now: he was staring at a point just above her left shoulder. 'This whole thing is unbelievably childish. Get back to studying and leave me alone.'

And he turned around and walked out of the library without a parting look at her. Astounded, Lily just sat there for a few moments, heart racing.

_What just happened? _

She was hurt, naturally, but she was also angry. Very angry. In fact, so angry was Lily Evans that in the moment where she should have gracefully bowed out and conceded defeat, her anger physically propelled her from her chair.

She raced out of the library without heed for her books, scattered across the table. 'Childish!' she yelled at him, power-walking down the corridor to catch up with him, feeling her face climbing in temperature. 'You _cannot _talk! This is _exactly_ what you did to me!'

James whirled around, eyes blazing. 'Right, so this is your revenge, then?' His hands came out of his pockets and Lily thought for a second that he was going to shake her, but they just clenched the air in front of him. 'Bloody hell, Evans! Are you ever going to stop driving me mad?'

It was a genuine question. His eyes searched hers for an answer. The fury that had given her momentum bled out of her.

'Probably not,' she responded honestly after a deep breath. Then came the big, vulnerable guns. 'But… it's kind of awesome… isn't it?'

She had said too much. She knew it as soon as she said it. Granted, she was only repeating what he had said at the night of the ball, but it was so obvious what it meant. That this wasn't just about friendship, however many times she wrote the word 'friend' onto his breakfast muffins, or spelled it out with rat entrails in Divination.

And James knew it. His eyes widened infinitesimally. His breath was coming just a bit faster. Quickly, he turned around so she couldn't see his face. It was like she was watching a repeat of their last fight, and as angry as she was at herself for ruining the fragile platonic base she'd strived to establish these past weeks, she was even angrier that they seemed, once again, to be at a plateau they couldn't get off.

Just when Lily was beginning to feel like she had actually ruined everything, he spoke again. 'Alright,' he said almost inaudibly to the wall. 'Here's some advice, then.' There was a long moment where he didn't say anything and Lily, paranoia running through her veins in this electric, impossible moment, thought he was mocking her. _Here's some advice: nothing._ But then, on a weary exhale, he said, 'Stop with the grand gestures, Evans.' He sighed. 'I've learnt a little bit since last year. Remus asked me something a few months ago. He asked what I thought now you would have preferred: the public demonstrations or the little things.'

Lily didn't really know what he was saying. 'I – er – I'm not… sure?'

He swung around to catch her expression. His own eyes were clear and guileless. His fingers were twitching. He swallowed. 'I'm going to teach you, then.' Both fidgeting hands slid back into his pockets, and Lily's eyes followed them, frightened that they somehow signified him withdrawing from her.

But his next words blew her out of the water. 'If I could go back and do it again,' he said weightily, looking at her straight in the eyes. 'I'd pull your chair out for you. I'd smile at everything you say and compliment your hair and I'd try my bloody hardest to make you realise that you are the…' He fell short, eyes widening. He was saying too much.

Lily felt her throat closing up. That certainly wasn't a statement of withdrawal.

They had both said more than was right; more than was fair. The air was thick and heavy with meaning and _feeling_. And Lily felt something in her chest falling at the same time that she felt it lifting. At the very same time that she was wondering what the hell this meant right here and now, she was watching in her head how differently it all could have turned out if things had been as James had just described them.

'Anyway.' He regrouped, looking for a way out, and the fragile skin of atmosphere that surrounded them split like a delicate cocoon. The moment was gone. 'By my estimates we have about three minutes before the Transfiguration exam begins,' he said in his normal, everyone-else-except-Lily voice, eyes sweeping past, looking to catch ahold of anything but her.

Then a tiny, tiny smile caught his face and Lily felt her heart begin to pound again, because she swore it had stopped at one point in the last five minutes. It was a ghost of the grins she had used to see: sparking and mischievous and absolutely beautiful. And she felt a bit of trepidation, because she knew she'd do close to anything for that smile. 'That gives you about three minutes to get your bloody friendship niffler out of my dormitory.' The smile widened. 'Chop, chop.'

Then he turned around and walked away from Lily, in the direction of the Great Hall. A little dazed, the redhead stood for a few more moments in the same spot, staring at where he had been.

'Evans?'

She turned around.

James had paused at the end of the corridor, an inscrutable expression on his face. He seemed to be at war with himself and didn't speak for quite a few moments. Finally, it seemed that the side of him that had smiled a few moments ago won out.

'If you get back in time, you can pull my chair out for me.'

* * *

Hah? Hmm? Feels? Anti-feels? Let me know, bruthas :)


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